


A Study in Tardis Blue

by MedieavalBeabe



Series: WhoLock [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV) RPF
Genre: Multi, Mystery, Time - Freeform, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedieavalBeabe/pseuds/MedieavalBeabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "More Things In Heaven and Earth."

Sherlock Holmes, renowned detective of modern London, was lying flat on his back on the sofa in the living room of 221B Baker Street, legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed. To anyone who didn’t know him, he was either asleep or deep in concentration, perhaps on another theory as to the culprit behind the latest mystery he had been given to solve. To John Watson, who knew him better than anyone else, he was bored. 

And, John thought, as he pushed open the door of the flat they shared and stared around the room at his best friend, even if he hadn’t been able to tell from that, the seven new bullet holes in the wall would have given him a fair indication of Sherlock’s current state of mind. 

“There’s not going to be a wall left if you keep shooting holes in it,” he commented. 

Sherlock ignored him; whether purposefully or not could be debated. At any rate, John didn’t take it personally. Instead, he simply walked over to the nearest armchair and picked up the paper. “I had a slow day, thanks for asking,” he added, thinking privately that he might get a better response if he had been talking to the wall instead of Sherlock. 

“Slow?” Sherlock’s eyes flew open, although he didn’t turn his head to look at John as he spoke. It was quite eerie. “John, do you actually know the meaning of the word slow?”

“I do, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me anyway,” replied John, with a casual sigh. That was typical of Sherlock. Still, it could be worse. The last time this had happened, John had opened the fridge door to find a severed head in it. To which Sherlock's response had been "Well, where else was I going to keep it?"

“Slow is when the rest of the world passes you by and you don’t pass with it, John. Slow is everybody else rushing around to get from place to place whilst you’re still stuck in the same spot in pyjamas and dressing gown.”

“Yes, I was meaning to ask; have you even changed today at all?” asked John, opening the paper. 

“No,” snapped Sherlock. “Slow is three whole days with no interesting puzzles whatsoever, John!” He sat up, violently. John wouldn’t have been surprised if he kicked something; he was that stressed out. “I’m bored! Bored, bored, out of my mind!”

“I can tell,” John sighed, putting down the paper. “I noticed the bullet holes after all.”

“It’s not right, John!” Sherlock uncrossed his legs and crossed them again in agitation. “Something has to be happening somewhere in the world!”

John rolled his eyes. “Shall I just go out now and murder someone just to keep you occupied, Sherlock?”

Sherlock scowled. “Is that a joke?”

John sighed. “Well, Sherlock, everyone has slow days; but they deal with it in a normal way.”

“Normal? What do you mean “normal?”

“Well, not shooting holes in the wall for a start!”

Sherlock was about to respond when a loud scraping sound caused them both to look around. “What on Earth..?” John faltered as a large, blue, old-fashioned Police Box materialised in the middle of the room. The two men stared at it in wonder and bewilderment. 

“Now that is interesting,” said Sherlock. 

Inside the blue Police Box, things were very different. The inhabitants were far from bored. In fact, one of them was now standing with her hands on her hips, in her socks with her shoes in her hands. It was safe to say that Hannah as not a happy bunny.

“I’m really reluctant to do this, Doctor,” she told him, sternly. 

“Oh, come on, Hannah,” grinned the mischievous Time Lord, clapping his hands together. “It’s a perfectly harmless experiment.”

“If it’s so harmless, then why aren’t you using any of your own clothes?” asked Hannah. 

The Doctor gave her a haughty look and straightened his bow tie. “Don’t be ridiculous, girl. I’m not having any of my clothes shrunk down or disintegrated.”

“Disintegrated?” Hannah repeated, hurriedly pulling her shoes back on. “That settles it! I’m not having my socks reduced to dust just because you can’t remember if that’s the Shrink Modulator Beam or not! Anyway, we’ve arrived somewhere now.”

“So we have,” mused the Doctor, who hadn’t noticed the Tardis making its usual landing noise in his enthusiasm. “Let’s check the scanner.”

He pulled the small television screen forwards and Hannah, now laced firmly into her shoes, out of a paranoid fear that the Doctor might suddenly wrestle her to the ground for her socks, skipped up behind him to peer at it. 

They appeared to have landed in a room, possibly in someone’s house. “Hm,” the Doctor murmured, trying to hide his disappointment that they hadn’t landed anywhere more exotic or exciting. “I wonder who lives here.”

“Well, whoever it is, they’re very untidy,” Hannah commented, tapping the screen. “Look; cushions slung about the place, dirty plates on the floor; I’ll bet only men live here, you know, Doctor,” she added, without thinking. The Doctor turned to her with a raised eyebrow and she blushed. “Well, you know what I mean, Doctor; men are always much more untidy than women.”

“Do you have any evidence to base that theory on, Hannah?”

“I stayed in a flat with three of them before we met,” she reminded him. “Besides, you’re as bad as the rest of them. The state of that kitchen when I first came in here doesn’t bear thinking about!”

She jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the Tardis kitchen. The Doctor made a childish face and muttered something about chores being boring. “Hey, Hannah, look at this,” he added before she could ask him to repeat himself; something he hated doing. He pointed at the wall of the house. “See those marks in the wall?”

It took Hannah a little while to register what they must be. “Bullet holes, Doctor?” She shivered. “You don’t think we’ve landed in Victorian Times, do you? Or in the home of a Mafia gang?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No, according to the Tardis, we’re in twenty first century Britain, London, to be precise.”

“And you’re sure she’s not on the blink?” Hannah couldn’t resist teasing. The Tardis did have her faults, as any ship her age would and more often than not the Doctor would say “It must be on the blink” about one of her gadgets. 

“On the blink?” the Doctor repeated, shaking his head as if the notion was ridiculous. “You know, when you’re as old as she is, Hannah, I’ll bet you won’t be in such good condition. Now, come on, we might as well explore whilst we’re here; no matter how boring it may be outside.”

Hannah grabbed his arm as a thought struck her. “Doctor, do you suppose anyone’s in the house right now?”

Knock. Knock. 

“There’s your answer, Hannah,” replied the Doctor, cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. “Come on, let’s go out and say hello.”

Hannah giggled and followed him to the door. 

John tapped on the doors of the Police Box and frowned. “Wood. It’s just an ordinary 1950’s Police Box, Sherlock.”

“Ordinary? Ordinary?” repeated Sherlock, making his way around the box with apparent fascination. “A Police Box that materialises out of nowhere, John?”

“No, I see what you mean,” agreed John. He put his hands on his hips, closed his eyes and counted to ten, just to make sure he was truly awake. When he opened them again, the box was still there. “It’s impossible,” he mused. “It can’t really be here.”

“John, how often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

“Fair point, but this?” John waved a hand at the box. “It’s not...”

“Not?” Sherlock prompted. 

“Not within the realms of human technology.”

“Exactly!” Sherlock looked excited. “So what are we seeing, John? What?”

Before John could answer, the door swung open inwardly and a cheerful-faced youth stuck his head out of the box. “Hello!” he said, cheerfully, as if this kind of thing was perfectly normal. “How are you?” 

John blinked at him. Sherlock came around the side of the box and stood before the man, with a look of confusion on his face. “And you are?”

“Sorry, yes, I’m the Doctor,” said the man, stepping from the box and pulling the door shut behind him. There was rapid knocking and an indignant yelp of “Doctor!” from inside. 

“Whoops!” exclaimed the Doctor, opening the door again for the girl to step out. “Sorry, Hannah.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. The Doctor had forgotten she was there; again. He was so scatty like that, sometimes, it was unbelievable. Still, she could berate him later. For now, she smiled politely at the newcomers. “Hi.”

“Hello,” John greeted her, looking bewildered. Hannah didn’t blame him. It wasn’t every day that a Tardis materialized in your living room. 

“What is this thing?” asked Sherlock, folding his arms and nodding at the Tardis. 

The Doctor frowned at him. “Hello. You look familiar. Have we met before?”

“I think I’d remember,” said Sherlock, in a clipped tone. 

John shot him a look. “What my friend means to say is how is this all possible and if it’s some kind of magic trick or illusion, it’s a very good one.”

“That’s not what I meant at all-!” Sherlock was cut off as John kicked him to shut him up. 

“It’s a pretty long and complicated story,” Hannah said, pulling the door closed behind her. “You probably wouldn’t believe us. I wouldn’t.”

Sherlock grunted and rubbed his leg. “Well, that all depends on how believable your story is.”

“Alright, you asked for it,” said the Doctor, cheerfully. 

“Doctor, I don’t think-!” began Hannah, but it was too late. There was no stopping the Doctor once he was started; you might as well try to part the Red Sea. 

“Well, this here,” the Doctor rattled off, “is called the Tardis; that’s Time And Relative Dimension In Space. We travel in time and space, doing our duty saving the universe from alien foes, and all that jazz. Often it’s pretty dangerous, but we always come out on top, don’t we, Hannah?”

“Just barely, Doctor,” she replied, drily. Sherlock and John were staring at them. Her fear was that they would call the police and then she and the Doctor would be on their way to the nearest mental asylum, wherever that was. If the police came, they could make a run for it. She wondered how far away they were from Ealing, where her aunt lived. They could always run to her in a time of trouble, she knew. 

Sherlock seemed to recover from his injury and straightened up. “Very well. I believe you.”

“You do?” John voiced what Hannah was thinking. 

“You can tell when people are lying, John.”

“Only if you’re you,” he reminded him. 

The Doctor grinned and nudged Hannah. “See?”

“And you’re a doctor?” Sherlock continued, folding his arms and studying the Doctor. “Somewhat eccentric, clumsy and no sense of personal pride in appearance.”

Hannah laughed at once. “How did you guess?”

“Oi!” The Doctor cuffed her, lightly. Hannah laughed again. It was worth it. 

“Judging from your dress and the small tear in your left cuff which you clearly didn’t notice, otherwise you would have fixed it,” Sherlock finished. He looked over at Hannah. “Abductive reasoning.”

“Yes, I guessed,” she smiled. 

“But, whilst you are a doctor, you are not a doctor of medicine, but of science,” concluded Sherlock. 

“How can you tell?” John muttered. 

“Isn’t it a bit obvious, John?” He nodded at the Tardis. “A time and space machine; do try to keep up.”

Hannah giggled again. Sherlock gave her the kind of smile that made Molly Hooper go weak. “You, on the other hand, are a cleaner, obviously very hard working, given your chapped hands.”

Hannah looked down at them. He was, of course, right but even so, she was amazed that he could spot the state of her hands from the angle she was holding them in. 

“And very good at making tea,” the Doctor put in, giving Hannah another friendly nudge. “And while we’re playing this game, you must be with the police; who else in Britain would possess a legal firearm?”

“He helps the police; he’s not actually with them,” John explained. 

“Waste of space,” Sherlock muttered. “Scotland Yard would collapse if not for me.”

“Now where have I heard that before?” Hannah asked the Doctor, meaningfully. 

The Doctor shook his head. “I’m sure I know who you are. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” said Sherlock. “It’s-”

Just then, Mrs Hudson, their landlady walked through the door, carrying two bags of shopping. She saw the bullet holes in the wall and frowned. “Oh, Sherlock! I wish you’d stop doing that! I’ve just about had-!” She broke off upon seeing two strangers and a Police Box in the middle of her living room. “What’s going on?”

“Of course!” The Doctor exclaimed, staring at Sherlock now. “I remember now!”


	2. "T'is in my memory lock'd!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“What, Doctor?” asked Hannah, looking at him curiously as she always did when he remembered something that she had never been a part of; some far away incident or encounter lost in time and space. How, she often wondered, could he remember every single little detail about everything he had ever done in his lifetime when you took into account all the adventures he had ever had? Perhaps, she often reflected in response to that question, Time Lords just had unusually large brains. After all, they had two hearts, she knew, so why not?

The Doctor was looking at Sherlock with a strange expression on his face. Sherlock didn’t like it. John could tell and so he said, quickly to Hannah, “I take it from that you don’t know what he’s just remembered?”

Hannah waved her hand in front of the Doctor’s face. He didn’t flinch. A slight smile curved on his lips. Hannah knew that smile. It was what she had come to know as “The Doctor’s smile of knowing” and she was most familiar with it whenever he got the better of the Daleks.

“Young boy, running through a forest at night...” he said, still looking at Sherlock. 

Sherlock blanched, visibly, and took a step backwards. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sherlock, are you alright?” asked John, quietly. 

“Look,” said Mrs Hudson, finally recovering from seeing the blue Police Box in the middle of her living room, “can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“Sorry, yes,” said the Doctor, snapping his attention to her, clapping his hands and smiling. “My name’s the Doctor and this is my best friend and trusty companion Hannah.”

“Hi,” said Hannah, giving her a polite wave. 

“And we’d like to apologise for parking our craft in the middle of your lovely living room,” the Doctor continued. 

“Lovely?” Hannah muttered to him. 

The Doctor gave her a nudge in the ribs. “Hannah! This is a lovely room!”

“Apart from the bullet holes,” she pointed out. 

“Sorry,” Sherlock said, bluntly, to Mrs Hudson who simply rolled her eyes and tutted before moving towards the kitchen with her shopping. 

“If you’ve been doing any more experiments in my kitchen, Sherlock...”

Hannah, seeing her loaded down with the bags, stepped forwards just before John, who was also intending to, could do so. “Let me help,” she offered. 

“Oh!” Mrs Hudson smiled. “That’s very kind of you.” She grinned at Sherlock as she followed Hannah into the kitchen. “Perhaps you could learn something from her.”

John laughed. “I doubt it.” He could sense Sherlock was visibly distressed by the Doctor’s look. 

“Will you stop staring at me?” snapped the detective. 

“It was terrifying, wasn’t it?” said the Doctor knowingly. “Running, not knowing whether you were going to survive or not...”

“Stop it!” hissed Sherlock. 

“What’s he talking about?” asked John. 

Sherlock flinched. “Nothing.”

“Well, it’s obviously something,” John commented as Hannah and Mrs Hudson came back into the room. 

“It’s nothing!”

When Sherlock clammed up like this, John knew he must have a good reason for it, and so he didn’t press the matter. The Doctor, however, didn’t know Sherlock as well as his best friend and so he pursued. 

“But it’s dark...you can’t see them...they move very fast...”

“Stop it!”

“And then a man in a brown coat stands, wielding a strange device...”

“Doctor?” Hannah frowned at him. “What are you going on about?”

The Doctor looked over at her. “Oh, I forgot, you weren’t there, Hannah.” He jerked his head at Sherlock. “He was. He can tell you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sherlock repeated, even though his tone suggested otherwise.

“Oh, come on!” The Doctor exclaimed. “How can you forget something like-?”

“Doctor!” Hannah said in a firm tone, because now she was beginning to sense their new friend’s distress. “Does the term keeping your mouth shut mean anything to you?”

“What?”

Hannah glanced at Sherlock and gave him an apologetic smile. “Ignore him. He’s an idiot.”

“Oi!” The Doctor exclaimed, indignantly. 

“That Kinda woman said you were, Doctor, and sometimes I’m inclined to agree with her!”

John chuckled. Mrs Hudson tittered. Sherlock relaxed and smiled. 

“You are not too young to be locked out of the Tardis,” the Doctor warned her, but it was only in jest, she knew. 

“Anyway, come on,” she said, stepping up to him. “You said we could go to Paris of 1911 and meet Gaston Leroux and we’re not going to do that standing in a living room in...” She looked at Mrs Hudson. “Sorry, stupid question but whereabouts in London are we right now?”

“Baker Street,” she replied, with a kindly smile. “221B Baker Street.”

“If the Tardis brought us here instead, there’s got to be some reason for it, Hannah,” the Doctor reminded her. “Pre-war France can wait.” He looked up at Sherlock, with that same knowing look. “I think it means that you need my help...again.”

“Again?” Sherlock repeated, stiffly. “When did I need it the first time?”

“Don’t,” said John as the Doctor opened his mouth to argue. Sherlock put his hands in his dressing gown pockets. “Just don’t,” John said to the Doctor. 

“Thank you, John.”

“Much obliged, as usual.”

“Alright,” the Doctor said, in a tone of defeat but the wink he gave Hannah when he discreetly turned and pretended to scratch his nose told her that he wasn’t giving up just yet. Men, she thought to herself. Why did they have to be so stubborn? 

“So, what, then?” she asked him, tucking her own hands in the pockets of her jacket and looking like an eager child who is also wise beyond it’s years and knows it’s about to get the better of its parent. “Something strange is happening here? Aliens?”

“More than likely.” The Doctor grinned at her. “Are you ready?”

“No.”

“Atta girl!” The Doctor strode past her and the occupiers of 221B Baker Street and went to the door. “Don’t forget to lock the Tardis!” he called over his shoulder as he pulled the door open. 

Hannah shook her head, but did as she was told. Then, feeling the eyes of the others on her, she turned and tucked the Tardis key into her pocket. “Sorry,” she said, apologetically, and then she ran after the Doctor. 

“Now, wait just a minute-!” John began. 

“They can’t just leave this thing in the middle of the living room!” exclaimed Mrs Hudson. 

John ran to the door and threw a look over his shoulder to his best friend. “Well? Are you coming?”

Sherlock winced. “With that man?”

“Well, it’s better than doing nothing until the next case comes up,” John argued, before glancing at Mrs Hudson. “I’ll try and get them to move it or something.”

He hurried out of the room and followed the Doctor and Hannah out into the street. The Doctor, who had known they would follow, turned and then seeing it was only John, looked disappointed. “Oh. Is it only you?”

“Thanks!” replied John, sarcastically. 

“Referring to my earlier comment about him being an idiot,” Hannah began.

“That’s enough out of you, Hannah,” the Doctor warned her, pointing what looked to John like a thick pen with a green light glowing at the end at her. 

Hannah sighed. “Well, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here, Doctor. It’s just an ordinary London street; it’s not even an ordinary London street in the future or anything. It’s here and now. It’s boring.”

John looked at her carefully. “You really weren’t making up that stuff about time and space, were you?”

“Did you ever doubt that we were?” asked the Doctor. 

John stepped up to him. “Listen,” he said, in a quieter tone, “what was all that stuff just now with Sherlock; about running through a forest in the dark? I’ve never seen him look so distressed before.”

“I said you were making him uncomfortable, Doctor!” Hannah said, triumphantly, hitting the Doctor softly on the arm. 

The Doctor flapped at her, as if she were a street beggar with fleas from Victorian Times, before turning his attention back to John. “Tell me, John, how long have you known him?”

John thought back, uncertainly. “Almost a year, maybe. I don’t know. Long enough to know him better than anyone else.”

“How much of his past do you know?”

John shrugged. “He rarely talks about his past. Why?”

“Interesting,” mused the Doctor. 

Before John could ask just what was so interesting, there was a sudden scream from down the road. “Aha! That’s more like it!” cried the Doctor. “Come on!” He grabbed Hannah’s arm. “It’s this way!”

“No, it’s that way!” Hannah replied, pointing in the right direction. 

“Hannah, I have the directional instincts of a homing pigeon,” the Doctor said, irritated. “It’s this way!”

“She’s right!”

The trio turned to see Sherlock coming out of the flat, pulling on his long coat. He was now fully dressed, John was glad to see; although even if he had left in pyjamas and a dressing gown, he would be more dressed than he was that time they had been summoned to the palace and Sherlock had come wrapped in a sheet and nothing else, like an Ancient Egyptian. He smiled. At least his best friend was now looking like his old self again. 

“It is that way,” Sherlock corrected the Doctor, giving Hannah a smile of confirmation. 

“Fine!” the Doctor exclaimed, throwing up his hands in resignation. 

“Oh, come on!” Hannah groaned, dragging him in the right direction, and together the four of them; a detective, a doctor, a Time Lord and a cleaner, ran in the direction of the screaming...


	3. "The demi-god, Authority."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“Come on, Hannah! Keep up!” the Doctor called over his shoulder. He skidded to a halt by the entrance to the alley where the screaming had come from, wielding the sonic screwdriver. He was barely out of breath. Hannah, on the other hand, had to lean on him as she finally reached him, one elbow on his shoulder, a symbol of their friendship. 

“That’s easy...for you to say,” she panted, bending over slightly to catch her breath. “We don’t all...have...two hearts...you know!”

The alleyway, on first glance, looked to be empty. “Nothing,” the Doctor muttered, stepping into the dim alley, with Hannah in his wake. “How can this be? We definitely heard screaming, didn’t we, Hannah?”

“Yep!” she agreed, looking around. “And even if we didn’t, then John and Sherlock must have.” She nodded in their direction as they came running towards her. She looked over at her friend. “How do you know him anyway?”

“That’s a long story, Hannah. Aha!” The Doctor leapt to the floor to examine something. “Look at this!”

Hannah crouched beside him. “It’s just dust, isn’t it, Doctor? Or powdered rock or something?”

“No,” the Doctor muttered, wielding the sonic screwdriver at the grey sand. “No.”

“What? Doctor, what is it?”

“There’s nothing here.” That was John, he and Sherlock had finally caught up to them. 

“And isn’t that interesting, John?” asked Sherlock. 

Hannah glanced down the alleyway and spotted something that caused her to straighten up. “No, wait! There’s something down there!”

Leaving the Doctor to examine whatever he had found, the three of them ran over to see a woman lying on her side on the ground. John immediately bent down beside her. “She’s alive. She just seems to have fainted,” he reported. 

Hannah looked around the alley and frowned. “Doctor, there’s more of that dust or whatever it is here. Look.”

The Doctor sprang to his feet and both he and Sherlock bent to examine the stuff. “Curious,” muttered Sherlock. 

“What is it?” asked John as the woman stirred. 

“Sand,” replied Sherlock. 

“Not just any sand,” countered the Doctor. 

Hannah turned her head as the woman sat up slightly. “It’s alright,” said John, quickly, as she looked panic stricken. “You’re safe. Can you tell us what happened to you?”

“Tara?” The woman looked around, wildly. “Where’s Tara?”

“Who’s Tara?” asked Hannah, gently. 

“My sister. She was here. And then that thing came and I...I couldn’t believe it.”

“What thing?” asked both the Doctor and Sherlock in unison. They exchanged a look of surprise. Any other time, Hannah and John might have giggled. 

“It moved...it wasn’t meant to...” The woman swallowed and pulled herself together. “But it had to be someone playing a trick!”

“What was it?” asked Hannah, taking the woman’s hand. 

“Did it look like a statue?” asked the Doctor, knowingly. 

The woman looked at him. “Y-yes. How did you know?”

“Yes, how did you know?” asked Sherlock, looking at him. 

The Doctor bit his lip, thoughtfully. Then he moved closer to the woman. “What’s your name?”

“Katharine Lockwood.”

“Katharine Lockwood,” the Doctor repeated, softly. He gave a grave nod. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. I’m afraid your sister’s gone.”

Katharine put a trembling hand over her mouth. “She..?”

Just at that point, there came the sound of footsteps in the alleyway and a voice said “I should have known. Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock stiffened and straightened up. “Inspector,” he said, in a tone as stiff as his body. 

“Hello, Inspector Lestrade,” said John, helping Katharine to her feet. 

“Riddell?” said the Doctor, with a frown, getting to his feet. 

“Sorry?” said the Inspector. 

“John Riddell, is that you?”

“My name’s Greg Lestrade of Scotland Yard,” said the Inspector. “But if I remember rightly, one of my ancestors was called John Riddell; back in Edwardian times.”

“Ah! Right!” The Doctor clapped his hands together. “Of course! That explains it! Isn’t time a funny thing, Hannah?”

“It is when you’re around,” she smiled. 

“Let me guess,” said Sherlock to the Inspector. “Mycroft sent you to check up on me, again.”

“No, actually, Sherlock, I’m quite surprised to see you here,” said Lestrade, calmly. He pulled an envelope from his pocket and looked from Hannah to Katharine. “So, which of you is Miss Katharine Lockwood?”

Katharine frowned. “I am, sir.”

“I was approached yesterday by an elderly woman who told me to give this to you on this exact spot at this precise moment in time.” There was a hint of amusement in the Inspector’s face as he said it. “She said it was from your sister.”

“My sister?” With trembling hands, Katharine took the envelope and opened it. “But how-?” She read it and frowned. “It’s her handwriting, but it doesn’t make sense...”

The Doctor took the note from her and read it aloud. “19th June, 1880. 

Dearest Katharine. I know I’ve just left you in the future because of that statue thing, but at the time I am writing this, I have been alive and well for sixty years. Somehow or other I was transported back to the year 1820 by that angel statue thing. At first, I was terrified and alone but so much time has passed since then and I have since been living a simple but pleasing life after becoming a governess for a wealthy family and marrying a young doctor,” here the Doctor grinned at Hannah. 

“She has good taste,” he commented, before continuing. “We have five children; our oldest, Lucy, has just married and had a child of her own. I’m going to hand this note down through my descendants until one of them can finally give it to you and let you know that everything is alright. It really is. 

All my love

Tara.”

“But that’s impossible!” burst Katharine. 

“Doctor, what’s this about an angel statue?” asked Hannah, folding her arms. 

“Weeping Angels,” the Doctor said, cheerfully. “Again!”

“You sound positive. Are they friendly?”

The Doctor laughed. “In no way whatsoever, Hannah! Keep up!”

Hannah sighed and shook her head. “You move too fast, Doctor! I can’t remember which aliens are hostile and which aren’t!”

“What are you two going on about?” asked John. 

“That’s what I’d like to know,” said Lestrade, folding his arms, “and more importantly, what’s been going on down here?”

“Sorry,” said the Doctor, snapping to attention. “This young woman’s clearly in a state of shock; she needs looking after. I’ll leave that in your capable hands, John. Hannah, come on; we need to find out where they are. Oh,” he added, as they were about to shoot off into the street again, “word of advice, if you see a statue at all, don’t blink!”

Lestrade caught him by the shoulder. “Did you see what happened?”

“Not exactly.”

“We heard screaming and came running,” Hannah put in. “Reflex action.”

“We need to get going,” said the Doctor, attempting to twist free, but Lestrade held onto him, firmly. 

“Is he with you, Sherlock?”

“That depends what you mean by “with,” said Sherlock, with a scowl. 

“Yes, they are,” said John, seeing as how it was the only way they were going to get anywhere. “Albeit, we’ve only just met them.”

“Give me that!” To the surprise of everyone, the Doctor had wriggled out of his jacket, leaving it in Lestrade’s grip, and now, in an indignant gesture he wrenched it back, folding it over his arm. Lestrade, in surprise, glanced at Hannah, who smiled and shrugged as if to say “Don’t ask me; I don’t know how he does it either!” The Doctor nodded to her. “Come on, Hannah, don’t dawdle!”

“Me?”

However, the Doctor found himself yet again restrained by Lestrade. “I think you should come with me to the station, sir.”

“No time,” the Doctor insisted. “The human race is in danger, again, and we can’t save it if we just stand here, being questioned.”

From the look on Lestrade’s face, he clearly thought the Doctor was barking. “Lestrade, I think you should-” began Sherlock.

“You have no authority here, Sherlock,” Lestrade reminded him in an irritated tone. “Although, while we’re about it, I think you should all come down to the station.”

The Doctor and Hannah exchanged a look. “Well, at least he’s friendlier than the last bloke who arrested us,” Hannah commented. Mind you, when you took into consideration that the last man who had them arrested had been Emperor Nero, anyone would have been friendlier. 

“Hannah, you still have your Tardis key?” asked the Doctor. 

“Yes, it’s in my pocket.”

“Then,” said the Doctor, with a glance at Lestrade, “taking into account that we’re about to be forced to, what’s that phrase, “go quietly” to the police station with this nice man, I think you’d better do what we usually do best.”

“Fight the Daleks?”

“No, the other thing.”

Hannah looked confused. “Other thing, Doctor?”

The Doctor beckoned her closer and whispered in her ear. Hannah understood. “Oh! THAT other thing!”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Lestrade. 

“Weeping Angel!” the Doctor exclaimed, pointing down the opposite direction of the alley. Everyone turned but there was nothing there, and when Lestrade next turned his head, Hannah had indeed done what she and the Doctor did best in any crisis. 

She had legged it. 

“So,” grinned the Doctor. “To the police station, then? Shall I drive?”


	4. "Once More Unto the Breech!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

Whenever Hannah was in a situation like this; when the Doctor had told her to run and they were separated, her first thought, and action alike, was always to run back to the Tardis. After all, whatever the scenario that awaited them whenever they landed anywhere it was always the one place that could be considered completely safe; their haven. Also, given that when they were separated it was usually because the Doctor had gotten himself incarcerated in some way, shape or form and thus it was up to Hannah to play the role of the white knight in armour and rescue him. And she could hardly do so without the aid of the Tardis. So it was that Hannah made her way back to 221B Baker Street. 

When she got there, however, she was surprised to find that the front door was ajar, only ever so slightly. She assumed that someone had come in rather than gone out, since Mrs Hudson hadn’t seemed the type to leave the front door open with the house empty inside. So, cautiously, Hannah made her way indoors and up the stairs to the top flat. 

The door here was shut but she could hear voices from within. One she recognised as Mrs Hudson’s. The other she didn’t recognise; it was a man’s, curt and clipped. 

“Look, all I can quite honestly say is that they looked like human beings, Mr Holmes,” said Mrs Hudson. “They just turned up in that thing, had a quick talk with Sherlock, which I can make neither head nor tail of and then they just left. John went straight after them and after he had changed, Sherlock went too.”

The man sighed. “What am I to do with him? Mrs Hudson,” his voice sounded urgent now, “there have been rumours about this sort of thin recently, which the public must be kept unaware of.”

If it wasn’t for his lack of accent, Hannah would have thought him to be working for the American Embassy or something of a similar nature. After all, she and the Doctor had been there at Roswell. 

“Well, I just want this thing out of my living room,” said Mrs Hudson. 

That, thought Hannah, is exactly what I plan to do right now, Mrs Hudson. The question was how was she to walk into the living room? Did she introduce herself to this new person? Or did she opt for method B, as usual? On one occasion, when the Doctor had landed the Tardis in an antique shop in Maine, Hannah had simply pretended to be inspecting the merchandise and then, when they weren’t looking, simply darted past the owner and his girl and dived into the Tardis. That, of course, hadn’t worked as the pair had simply ended up taking a trip in the Tardis anyway, much to Hannah’s chagrin and panic. But then, Hannah wondered, what choice did she have? One way or another she had to shift the Tardis. 

Mustering up her courage, she pushed open the door and strode casually past the stranger and Mrs Hudson as if she hadn’t seen them. Feeling around for the Tardis key in her pocket, she didn’t notice that the stranger had come up to her until he said “Excuse me?” almost in her ear and tapped his cane on the ground as he said it. Hannah jumped and blinked at him. She felt like a child being caught out by a teacher. 

“Can I help you?” she asked. 

The man smirked. “Actually, I think you can help me. I’d like you to come with me.”

“To Scotland Yard?” Hannah shook her head. “No, thanks. I didn’t like it the first time I saw it.”

With that, she unlocked the door and walked into the safety of the Tardis, remembering to lock the doors behind her this time. “Alright, old girl,” she murmured to the Tardis, shrugging off her jacket as she always did when readying herself to fly the Tardis. Making the way up to the controls, she ran her eyes over them. “Let’s find your master.”

The Doctor had been playing around with the controls recently and she had a horrible feeling that he might have moved some things around, so she stood for a few minutes, familiarising herself with them. Before she could move anything, however, the sound of something tapping the exterior of the Tardis caused her to start. “I wish they wouldn’t keep on doing that!” Hannah groaned, patting the console comfortingly as if to tell it that she would put a stop to the apparent bullying it was currently undergoing. She spun on her heel and opened the door. “Sorry,” she said to the stranger. Mr Holmes, Mrs Hudson had called him, he must be a relation of Sherlock’s. “Could you not do that, please? It’s just this old girl’s had so many knocks in its time, it’s no wonder half her gadgets keep going on the blink.”

She was about to go back inside when the man caught her shoulder and dragged her back out again. “Your name?”

Hannah looked him up and down. He looked like a figure of authority to her. Before, she had considered spinning him some kind of lie, but her aunt had once told her “Hannah, it’s never a good idea to lie to the police.”

“Hannah,” she said, and then, boldly, as she folded her arms, “And you are?”

“Mycroft Holmes.”

Hannah swallowed. That was a name she had most definitely heard of. He worked for MI5 or CIA on a freelance basis, if her memory served correctly. “THE Mycroft Holmes?”

“Unless there’s another.”

Hannah nodded, slowly. Given Mycroft’s position and his professional relationship with both the British government the Royal Family, he could make things very difficult for her and all who knew her if she didn’t comply with his wishes, she knew. “Very well, Mr Holmes,” she sighed, relocking the Tardis door behind her and holding out her wrists in a resigned manner, as if expecting to be, what was the phrase, clapped in irons. “I’ll come quietly.”

Mycroft Holmes laughed. “I just want some information from you. For a start I’d like to know exactly what you are.”

Well, that one was easy enough. “I’m a cleaner. Well, I was,” she added, truthfully. “My employer recently met with a tragic accident and I’m travelling with a friend-”

“I mean what species.”

Hannah frowned. “W-what do you mean? I’m human.” Then she realised. Of course, it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that the Tardis was beyond the realms of current human technology; everyone’s first thought would be that the inhabitants were from another planet. Well, one of them was, but that was beside the point. Now Hannah was beginning to understand what he meant. She didn’t want to land the Doctor in more trouble than he was already in, but then she couldn’t lie to this man either. “This isn’t my machine,” she said, patting the Tardis gently. “It belongs to a friend of mine.”

“That young man you were with earlier?” put in Mrs Hudson, who had been watching the scene. 

Hannah laughed. She couldn’t help it. It just seemed so extraordinarily hilarious to her, who knew the Doctor’s true age, when those who didn’t know him mistook him for a man who had not yet reached his early thirties. Added to that, it had just occurred to her how ridiculous this whole situation was becoming. First the Doctor parked the Tardis in the living room of Mrs Hudson’s top flat; then they learned that some Weeping Angel thing, obviously an alien, for what else could it be, started wreaking havoc on the streets of London and then the Doctor had been taken in for questioning and here she was worrying about being accused of not being human. She sobered up quickly, however, when Mycroft fixed her with a look that clearly showed that he couldn’t see what there was to laugh at. 

“Yes,” she said, in answer to Mrs Hudson’s question, “although he’s not quite as young as you’d think.”

Mycroft’s brow furrowed in suspicion. “What is your friend’s name?”

“The Doctor,” Hannah said, without thinking. 

By rights she ought to have given his nom-de-plume Dr John Smith but it was a bit late for thinking about that now. Mycroft stared at her for a second and then smiled broadly at her. “In that case, I think it’s even more important that you come with me, Miss.”

“But I ought to move this-” began Hannah. However it was clear that Mycroft didn’t trust her not to go back into the Tardis and fly off again. In resignation, Hannah locked the Tardis door behind her. “Behave,” she muttered to the machine before turning back to Mycroft Holmes. “Alright, Mr Holmes. I understand.”

He prompted her to lead the way with his cane. “Now hang on a minute!” began Mrs Hudson, and Hannah sensed she was less upset about the Tardis not having been moved when she said it. “Mycroft Holmes, you can’t just walk in here and force this young girl to-!”

“I have full authority to do so, Mrs Hudson, do you forget?” he said, with a weary sigh. 

Hannah smiled at the woman. “It’s alright, Mrs Hudson. I’ve been in worse scraped than this before and actually, all things considered, he’s asking quite nicely, really.” 

“There, you see?” added Mycroft with a sly smile. “Nice seeing you again, Mrs Hudson.”

“I’ll be telling Sherlock about this,” Mrs Hudson muttered, walking resignedly into the kitchen. 

“You do that,” Mycroft muttered back. 

“OH!” Mrs Hudson’s shriek made them both stop dead on the stairs. “Oh, that man! I do wish he’d find somewhere else to keep his heads!”

“Heads?” Hannah repeated, bewildered as she walked out of the flat. 

“I’m afraid my brother has a habit of conducting bizarre experiments with heads stolen from graveyards,” Mycroft Holmes sighed. “Usually it’s something to do with a case; I find it best not to interfere.”

“Case?” Hannah repeated and then she remembered what John had said to her upon first meeting them. “Oh! You mean he’s a detective?”

“Hah!” Mycroft gave a sarcastic laugh and steered her in the direction of a waiting black car. “That’s one word for it. In you get.”

Hannah twitched as she got in, wishing there were some way she could telephone the Doctor. Then, she had a brainwave. “Tell me, do you have your brother’s number?”

“To my deepest shame,” muttered Mycroft, clambering in beside her. Hannah shifted all the way along, pressing up to the door, to give him room. “Why do you ask?”

“Because,” said Hannah, calmly, “my friend the Doctor is with him and I think it’s best I let him know that I could be some time in helping him out.”

Mycroft Holmes raised an eyebrow and for a second, Hannah thought he was going to ignore her request. Instead, however, he pulled out a mobile phone and dialled a number. “You know, her Majesty the Queen speaks very highly of your friend the Doctor,” he said, before pressing the call button. 

Hannah waited and then she heard the click of the phone being picked up on the other end of the line. “If you’re just calling to lecture me,” began Sherlock’s impatient tones. 

“No, I am not, Sherlock,” said Mycroft in a surly tone. “This is for your new friend the Doctor; if you’d care to put him on.”

There was a pause and then Hannah heard the sound of the phone being carried and then Sherlock saying to someone, probably Lestrade, “Phone call for him.” Mycroft held the phone out to Hannah, wordlessly, and she heard the Doctor saying, breezily, “Hello?”

That was so like the Doctor; calm and collected in such a situation. She took the phone and hissed “Hey! It’s me!”

“Ah, Hannah!” The Doctor exclaimed, with a smile in his voice. “Wait, why are you calling me on someone else’s phone? What happened to yours?”

“I don’t have Sherlock’s number, Doctor, if you remember we only met him this morning,” Hannah sighed. “Anyway, I did go back to the Tardis, but, well, now I’m in a car with Sherlock’s brother going goodness knows where. Sorry. I can’t exactly bail you out at this point in time.”

“Oh, it’s alright, Hannah!” He sounded so cheerful and casual that Hannah couldn’t help wondering if he was sitting with his feet up on the table. He was, but she couldn’t see that, of course. “I’m perfectly fine here! You know me! Nothing I can’t handle! Although, of course, the tea isn’t as good as yours!”

Hannah giggled. “And let me guess; no Jammy Dodgers?”

“Not a single one!”

“Well, it could be worse,” Hannah pointed out. 

“It is worse, Hannah. There’s a Weeping Angel out there somewhere; probably more than one, since they usually travel in packs.”

“Look, what are they, anyway, Doctor?” asked Hannah, forgetting that she was in a car with Mycroft Holmes, thinking instead that this was a normal conversation between herself and the Doctor. “I mean, what do they even do?”

“They send people back in time and that creates time energy, which is what they feed on,” the Doctor explained. “They’re as old as the universe, or very nearly, but no one really knows where they come from. "They’re the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life-form evolution has ever produced." 

Hanna frowned. “I thought that was the Daleks.”

“Alright, second most deadly-” 

“And what about the Cybermen? And the Sontarans?”

“Look, Hannah, just listen,” said the Doctor, firmly. Hannah knew that urgent tone and listened. “This is very, very important and could save your life. If you see a statue at all, whatever you do look at it. And don’t blink.”

“Why?” They were passing beneath a tunnel now and Hannah frowned as the phone line crackled. “Sorry, Doctor, you’re breaking up!”

“Don’t blink, Hannah! Whatever you do, don’t blink!”


	5. "Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“What did he say?” asked Mycroft as Hannah stared at the phone screen. It now read “Out of Area.”

“I could be wrong,” she replied, with a frown, handing the phone back to him, “but I think he said “don’t blink.”

Back in the police station, the Doctor kept repeating “Hannah? Hannah?” over and over again until he could finally accept that he had lost her. “Gadgets,” he sighed, looking at the mobile phone in his hand. “Always useless in the end!”

He handed the thing back to Sherlock. “See, this is why I prefer to text,” Sherlock said to Lestrade, with a hint, just a hint, mind, of triumph in his voice. 

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “If we could possibly get back to the matter in hand. Doctor, what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” said the Doctor, cheerfully, rearranging his legs on the desk and folding his arms, much to Lestrade’s chagrin. “It’s just the Doctor, although if you want something to put on the police records, you could put Doctor John Smith. Alternatively you could just phone up UNIT and talk to them, just to prove that I’m on your side here.”

“Side? What side?” Lestrade shook his head. “Look, what happened to that girl? Her sister can’t tell us much; she says she fainted when she saw some kind of angel.”

“The Weeping Angels,” the Doctor corrected him. 

“Whatever. Look, I would think you’d take this a bit more seriously given that a girl’s just disappeared.”

“She hasn’t disappeared,” the Doctor snapped. “As I was just telling Hannah, she was sent back in time by the Weeping Angels; back to the eighteen hundreds. She’s perfectly safe, from the sound of it, but her disappearance created Time Energy, which the Weeping Angels feed on.”

“Sorry, but you don’t expect me to believe in this, do you?” Lestrade scoffed. 

“Why not?” The Doctor scowled at him, like a child. 

“Because,” Lestrade laughed, incredulously. “Because it’s impossible!”

“Is it?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “How exactly?”

“I think you’ll find I’m asking the questions here, Doctor whatever-your-name-is.”

The Doctor leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Hay-ho, looks like it’s going to be another one of those days. I wonder how Hannah’s getting along wherever she is.”

Beyond their little room, in the confines of the station laboratory, Sherlock was fiddling, as usual, with his microscope, looking over some of the sand that he and the Doctor had both picked up in the alleyway. John, who knew better than to interfere, had wandered off to the corner of the room to take a call from Mrs Hudson. Finally, he bade her goodbye, hung up and walked over to Sherlock. “Apparently your brother’s just carted Hannah off; he didn’t say where to, though, or why.”

“Buckingham Palace is my reckoning, and because he thinks she might be useful for something in absence of the Doctor,” said Sherlock, not looking up from his work. 

John slipped his mobile back into his pocket and looked over at his best friend. “Who is he, Sherlock?”

“I have no idea.”

“You must have some idea.”

“Why?”

“Because you always do.”

Sherlock looked up at him. “John, do you know what frightens me more than anything in this whole world?”

“Enlighten me,” said John, folding his arms and leaning on the table. 

“Things that I can’t explain which have no explanation whatsoever.”

“And you can’t explain the Doctor?”

“Exactly.” Sherlock went back to his work. 

John took a deep breath. “He seems like an ordinary man to me, Sherlock. A little eccentric, maybe, and obviously very clever to have built that ship of his...”

“There is nothing ordinary about that man whatsoever, John. Trust me.”

John looked at him, carefully. “You...you’ve met him before, haven’t you?”

Sherlock sighed. “John, I can say in all honesty, I have never met that man before in my life.”

“But he knows you.”

“He’s mistaken.” Sherlock stopped fiddling with the microscope and stared straight ahead of him. “Or, he’s playing a very cruel joke.”

“Why a very cruel one?” asked John. It was a mark of how well he knew Sherlock that he had come to pick up on his use of phrasing and terminology when talking to someone. 

Sherlock roused himself. “All in the past, John.”

He went back to his work. “Well,” said John, carefully, because sometimes anything could set his best friend off. “Let me know when you want to talk about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, John,” Sherlock replied, bluntly. 

“Yes, I know; I said let me know when you want to.”

“What makes you think I ever want to?”

John sighed. “Fine. Forget I said anything.”

“I’ve already forgotten, John.”

John leaned over his shoulder to look at the sand. “What is this, anyway, Sherlock? What are we looking at?”

“Sand.”

“Just sand?”

“It would appear so.”

“Is it significant?”

“Possibly, but I can’t see how just yet.”

John looked around the room. “Maybe you should ask the Doctor.”

Sherlock’s head jerked up. “What? Because he knows more about this than I do?”

“Well, he does seem to know something about it, you can’t deny that.”

Sherlock said nothing and John wondered briefly if he was sulking. Finally, he got to his feet and turned to John. “If you think I should speak to him, I will.”

John was taken aback by this. “Oh. Right.” That wasn’t like Sherlock.

“But not on his own.”

Ah. Now, that was more like him. “Sorry,” John frowned. 

“I won’t be subjugated to being in the same room as that man without someone who seems to have an ounce more sense with him.”

John chuckled. “That rules out Lestrade, then?”

“Correct. I’d like you to track down Hannah.”

“How?”

“I told you, Buckingham Palace.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“When am I ever wrong, John?”

Rarely, John had to admit. “And just what am I expected to do; turn up at Buckingham Palace and ask if she’s there?”

“Just tell them that Sherlock Holmes sent you and they’ll admit you.”

John rolled his eyes. “Fine, but if my head ends up on a spike, I’m coming back to haunt you.”

Sherlock didn’t answer, he simply went back to his work. John left the room. 

It transpired that, as usual, Sherlock was right. Hannah actually felt her jaw drop as the car swung through the palace gates. She had been in three palaces in her life; Queen Elizabeth the First’s, Emperor Caligula’s and Louis XIV’s but never inside Buckingham Palace. Until now. She looked over at Mycroft. “Look, if I’d known we were coming here, I’d have worn something a little more, well, presentable.” 

Mycroft glanced at her in her jeans, floral shirt, denim jacket and clean Converse boots. “You look a damn sight better than Sherlock. One on occasion he turned up in nothing at all but a bed sheet.”

Hannah laughed, and then realised he was serious. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. It took a lot of persuasion on my behalf to get him to put his clothes on. It’s not easy having a younger brother who refuses to co-operate.”

“Funny,” Hannah mused as they pulled up. “Somehow it’s the kind of thing I can imagine the Doctor doing.”

Oddly enough, as she was thinking it, the Doctor was doing something else she was used to; not being naked in a bed sheet, but getting frustrated. 

“This isn’t a joke,” he was saying to Lestrade. “I don’t make jokes. Well, not many, anyway, and even then, there’s a time and a place.”

“I agree, Doctor,” said Lestrade in a clipped tone. “Now, for the last time, tell me what is going on here.”

“You shouldn’t be asking me these questions,” the Doctor exclaimed. “You should be out there worrying about the Weeping Angels.”

“I’ve had it up to here with these so-called Weeping Angels,” Lestrade said, pushing back his chair. 

The Doctor slammed his fist on the table. “Listen to me, Brigadier!” 

“Inspector Lestrade!”

“Sorry, sorry! The Weeping Angels are not joke! They can move deadly fast! That’s why I was telling Hannah not to blink if she sees one. The second you stop looking at them, they’re on the move!”

Back at the palace, sitting on a sofa and swinging her legs, Hannah couldn’t help but wonder why the Doctor had told her not to blink if she saw one of those statues. Obviously, she knew, he must have had a reason for doing so, but what? 

Mycroft might have said that she looked presentable enough for the palace but even so, she felt out of place dressed as she was. When they had visited Queen Elizabeth’s palace, the Doctor had dressed her in period costume (and thankfully, unlike the Queen’s, it hadn;t been stitched with thousands of jewels and was therefore fairly easy to move about in.) At Caligula’s, it had been the same and again at King Louis’s, although her dress hadn’t stayed clean too long there when they had visited the Bastille and met the prisoner in the iron mask. Feeling restless, and also sorry for whoever had to clean this place, because given the size of it, it probably took ages, she got to her feet and wandered about the room, keeping her hands clasped behind her back so that she wouldn’t be tempted to touch anything. 

“Why am I here?” she asked, finally. “I mean, you said that the Queen speaks very highly of the Doctor...”

“She does,” said Mycroft. “Because he once stopped a spaceship from crashing into this place one Christmas.”

Hannah could vaguely remember the Doctor mentioning it now she thought about it. “Ah, yes, the Titanic. Wait,” she added, before Mycroft could question her on the subject. “You mean you believe in spaceships and aliens and everything?”

“I know they’re out there. What I want to know is why they are now here, for some reason, and what I’m hoping you and the Doctor can do; what the Royal Family is hoping you and the Doctor can do is keep this whole thing under wraps and not leak it to the public.”

“But they must know, surely? I mean, everything that happens. The Slitheen crashing into Big Ben, the Autons breaking out of shop windows, the Rift opening up in Cardiff, Cybermen in every home in the world, the frequent Dalek attacks...”

Mycroft got to his feet. “Exactly! You see? They already know more than is good for them! It’s caused enough moral panic!”

Hannah folded her arms. “So, you want to protect them; is that what you’re saying?”

“Exactly.”

Hannah glanced out of the window. Below in the gardens, a man was up a ladder, clipping a hedge into shape. In the patch of grass opposite to him was a statue. Hannah squinted. What was it? A person? A goddess? No, wait. It had wings. It was an angel. 

“What is it?” asked Mycroft. 

Hannah turned to him. “No, it’s just there’s a statue out there that looks like an angel, I was thinking it was ironic that the Doctor was talking about the Weeping Angels and-”

She broke off as she glanced again out of the window. The man was climbing down the ladder. The angel statue was out of his sightline. Hannah felt her jaw drop again. 

It had moved. The thing had moved. 

“What?” Mycroft walked up to the window. “What is it, girl?”

For a second, Hannah seemed to have forgotten how to talk. “It moved,” she whispered, finally, pointing to the statue. “It moved. It wasn’t like that a second ago, not with its arms up in the air like that.”

Mycroft squinted at it; and then, he and Hannah must have blinked at the exact same moment because the statue moved again, half an inch forward. 

Hannah backed away from the window. “We need to call the Doctor! Now!”


	6. "Forswear it, sight!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

Sherlock was certain that the sand meant something; he just didn’t know what. He really did hate things he couldn’t explain; he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said that to John. Before he could make sense of it all, however, his mobile rang. “John, will you-?” he began, and then he remembered that John had left. “Oh, wait, he’s not here.”

The door opened at that point and he looked up to see Molly Hooper walk into the room. “Did I leave my-?” she began and then broke off, realising who she was talking to. 

“Molly,” he smiled. “Just the person I wanted to see. I want you to do me a favour.”

“What?” she asked, without hesitation. 

“Find my phone for me, will you?”

She almost laughed. It was still ringing. “Find it?”

“Yes,” he said, going back to his work. “It’s in my top pocket. John usually does it for me, but, well, he’s not here.”

Molly raised an eyebrow but nevertheless did as he asked. “It’s Mycroft,” she frowned, reading the screen. 

“What does he want now?” Sherlock scowled. 

“Should I answer it?”

“No.”

“But it might be important.”

“Fine, but I think you’re wasting your time.”

Molly answered the phone. “Hello, Sherlock’s phone?”

“Where is he?” hissed Mycroft from the other side. He and Hannah were still staring out of the window at the Weeping Angel. It didn’t look to have moved any more. Hannah wasn’t entirely sure whether or not that was a good sign. 

“Um, he’s here,” Molly stammered, holding out the phone to Sherlock, who didn’t notice that was what she was doing until Mycroft yelled “Sherlock!” down the phone, causing them both to start. 

“What?” he asked into the phone, irritated. 

“Why do you never answer your phone like a normal person?” snapped Mycroft.

“Because of being bothered by people like you!” Sherlock snapped back.

Hannah snatched the phone from Mycroft before he could say anything else. “Get the Doctor!” she cried. “We’re at Buckingham Palace-!”

“I know!” Sherlock cut in. 

“There’s a Weeping Angel here and I don’t know what to do!” Hannah cried. “Tell him that! He’s got to get here right now!”

Sherlock jumped to his feet. “The game’s afoot,” he said to Molly, taking his phone from her. “I’ll tell him,” he said to Hannah. 

“Thanks, and hurry!” Hannah waited whilst Sherlock, followed by Molly, in her curiosity as to what was going on, ran into the room where the Doctor was still being interrogated by Lestrade. “It’s Hannah,” she heard him say to the Doctor, “and she says it’s urgent.”

Then she heard the Doctor’s concerned tones. “Hannah?”

“There’s a Weeping Angel in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, Doctor!”

“Don’t blink!” he cried, leaping to his feet. 

“I’m trying, but it’s not easy!”

“Where are you?”

She frowned. “Buckingham Palace. I just said.”

“No, I mean are you standing right in front of it or not?”

“No, we’re in a room overlooking the grounds.”

“Hannah, listen to me very carefully; I want you to go and stand in front of that thing and DO NOT BLINK!”

“It’ll move if I look away from it, won’t it?”

“Well then get; who are you there with?”

“Mycroft Holmes.”

“Get him to watch that thing while you go downstairs and make sure he doesn’t blink!”

“Are you coming, Doctor? Please be on your way?”

“I’m coming, Hannah, don’t panic,” said the Doctor, leaping over a chair and making for the door. 

Lestrade spluttered. “Now hang on, you can’t just-!”

“Who’s panicking?” asked Hannah, sarcastically. 

“Hannah, I am deadly serious; don’t blink. I don’t want you disappearing too.”

“Ok, I’ll do my best. Please hurry.”

“I’ll be right there,” the Doctor reassured her and then he hung up. Hannah turned to Mycroft and tossed him back his phone. “Stand here and watch that thing, and do not blink, until you see me down there.”

Mycroft wasn’t usually the kind to take orders, rather the kind to give them, but he could sense this was an emergency, so he swallowed his pride and nodded. Hannah hurried from the room. 

Meanwhile, the Doctor turned cheerfully to Lestrade, who had followed him out of the room. “Yes, so, sorry to break up this little interrogation, but I really need to go now. Friend of mine in a bit of a pickle. Anyone have a car?”

“You are joking?” exclaimed Lestrade. “You can’t just stroll out of here without leave to do so!”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Humans! You’re all the same!”

“Here.” Sherlock tossed some car keys at the Doctor. Lestrade felt his pockets. “Hey! Sherlock!”

“What’s going on?” asked Molly, with a frown. 

“Nothing for you to be concerned with, Miss Hooper,” said Lestrade. 

The Doctor looked knowingly at Sherlock. “You’re not going to be able to solve this case unless you come too, Sherlock.”

Sherlock flinched. “I gave you those in the hope you’d leave and stop pestering me.”

The Doctor grinned, mischievously. “Well, I think we both know that’s not going to happen.”

Resignedly, Sherlock stepped up to him. “Very well; I’ll pretend I trust you, for now.”

The Doctor held up his hand, in a self-defence pose. “Anyone else, coming? Yes? Perfect! Geronimo! Let’s go!”

Meanwhile, Hannah finally found her way out of the maze that was the palace interior and ran up to the Weeping Angel statue. Up close, she saw that it was no longer weeping. It had a rather grotesque face that leered in a hungry manner and its hands reached out as if to snatch her from thin air. She shuddered. It seemed to have moved a few inches forwards but then, she decided, she couldn’t blame Mycroft for blinking a few times. After all, he was only human.

“Hurry, Doctor,” she groaned, glancing around her and then, realising what she had done, she looked up to see that the Angel had moved and was right in front of her. Hannah stepped backwards, quickly. Her hands found a shovel that the gardener must have left behind and she held it up, as if it could make a good weapon against something made of stone. It was always the aliens that disguised themselves as everyday objects that were the most frightening, she thought to herself; like the Autons or the Family of Blood; because then they made you afraid to be near the real things just in case they were aliens in disguise. 

“Do you have to drive so fast?” exclaimed Lestrade as the car bumped and swerved along the road. 

“Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed back, as if it were obvious. “Hannah’s at Buckingham Palace with a Weeping Angel; haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying?”

“There’s no such thing as a statue that can move by itself,” Sherlock tried, stubbornly. 

“Yes there is,” the Doctor said, swerving to avoid a man on a bike. “Sorry!” he called over his shoulder.

Molly had her hands over her eyes. “You said you could drive,” she said. 

“The last time I drove a car was back in the nineteen fifties, before they invented automatics,” the Doctor replied, indicating and turning towards Buckingham Palace. “Besides, I haven’t done it for a while; I’m a little rusty. When we need a car, it’s usually Hannah who drives.”

“Well, she’s driving on the way back,” said Sherlock. 

“I’m driving on the way back,” snapped Lestrade. “Since this happens to be my car!”

“Oh, details!” the Doctor sighed. “This is my point about you lot; all about petty details when there are real emergencies to be dealt with in the world; like Hannah being in Buckingham Palace with a Weeping Angel!”

“What do you mean, us lot?” Molly asked. 

“Humans,” the Doctor explained. “I mean, no offence, I love humans, I love them to bits, but sometimes I am really glad I’m not one!”

That stunned the rest of his party into silence. 

“I’m warning you,” Hannah said to the Angel, staring it out, even though she was dying to blink. “You move and you get this.” She lifted the shovel. “Right in the face.”

It was no good. Taking another step backwards, she was about to blink when...

“I wonder?” She winked one eye, keeping the other trained on the Angel. It didn’t move. She tried the other eye. It was the same. She grinned, proudly. “There’s one for you, Doctor.”

“Hannah?” 

She almost turned but stopped herself just in time. “Who’s that?” she asked. 

“John Watson.”

“Oh, hey,” she said, still not daring to tear her eyes away from the Angel. “Is the Doctor here?”

“Not with me,” he answered, hurrying up to her. “Sherlock wanted me to find you.”

“What?” She looked at him. “Why?”

“Jesus!” exclaimed John, looking at the Angel. 

Hannah glanced back at the Angel, which had moved closer still. Wielding the shovel, she landed the angel a blow to the arm which knocked the thing clean off. “I warned you!” she snapped to the Angel.

“It’s stone,” John gasped. “But it moved...”

“It’s alien.” Hannah shot him a glance, keeping one eye on the Angel. “Welcome to my world.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Impossible? Spaceship crashing into Big Ben? Great big spaceship hanging over London on Christmas Day? Cyberman in every home in the world? Have you people learned nothing?”

Hannah grinned and turned to the Doctor. “You took your time, Time Lord!”

John had turned too. “Hannah!” cried the Doctor.

Hannah turned to see the Angel inches from her. With a yelp of fright, she stumbled backwards and fell, dropping the shovel. “Don’t you even think about it!” the Doctor snapped to the Angel. 

That was when the severed arm seized upon his leg. The Doctor yelped and looked down, causing it to freeze into stone. “Ah!” he exclaimed, indicating there was now a very, very big problem afoot. “Right!”

“What do we do?” Hannah cried. 

“At a time like this, Hannah, there is only one thing to do!”


	7. "He which hath no stomach to this fight."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“What?” cried Hannah. “Doctor, what the hell do we do?”

The Doctor turned his attention to John, who was staring at the Angel. Somehow, Hannah decided, with only one arm, it looked slightly less terrifying. “We need a mirror!”

“A-a mirror?” John stammered, uncertainly. 

“What is going on here?”

John turned to see Lestrade coming up behind them. “Hey, what are you doing here?” he asked, in surprise. 

“Oh my God...” Molly murmured, staring at the Angel. 

“Someone fetch a mirror!” exclaimed the Doctor, whipping out the sonic screwdriver and pointing at the Angel’s hand on his leg. With a whirring sound, the screwdriver did something to cause the stone hand to spasm and then freeze. The Doctor was able to yank it off and held it out to John. “Now!”

“Where am I supposed to find a mirror?” asked John. 

“It’s the Palace!” snapped Hannah. “Doesn’t the Queen own a mirror or something?”

“Second floor, three doors down, right in the middle of the corridor,” Sherlock reeled off to John. 

“If you say so,” John muttered, and then he hurried off as fast as he could go. Lestrade hurried after him. 

“What do we need a mirror for?” asked Hannah, still staring at the Angel. 

“Did you never read any of those stories about dragons when you were younger, Hannah?” asked the Doctor. 

“Dragons?”

“Or creatures that could turn to stone if they looked at themselves in a mirror?” 

“Ah!” Hannah nodded, understanding. “Got it! Doctor, can you take over for a second? I need to blink, really badly.”

The Doctor looked at the Angel and Hannah blinked. The thing didn’t move. The Doctor smiled. “Ok?” he asked Hannah, without turning his head. 

“Yeah, that’s better,” she replied. 

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” asked Molly, stepping up to the Doctor. 

“Long story short,” said the Doctor, “These creatures are called the Weeping Angels,” here he gestured to the Angel with one hand, “and they feed of time energy which is created when they send people back to a time before they were born. They move super fast and the only way to keep them from not moving is to look at them; even a blink can cause them to move. Right now, this one,” again he waved to the Angel, “is quantum locked, as long as we keep looking at it.”

“What about the hand?” Hannah asked, trying desperately not to blink. 

“It’s ok; I quantum locked that temporarily with the sonic,” the Doctor replied, tossing the hand and then catching it. “Perfectly ‘armless now, Hannah.”

“Very funny,” she replied, with a wry smile. 

Molly looked over at Sherlock. He was very pale and had a peculiar look on his face; almost like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He turned away from them. Molly frowned. “Sherlock? What is it?”

“Ah!” said the Doctor, glancing behind Sherlock to John and Lestrade, who were running up with a large ornate mirror. “Good show!”

“Where do you want it?” asked John. 

“Right on the ground where the Weeping Angel can see it!” the Doctor replied. 

“This is madness!” Lestrade spluttered, although he sounded less convinced than he had done five minutes ago. 

John glanced at Sherlock. “You ok?”

“I’m fine,” Sherlock muttered. 

“Are you sure?”

“I said I’m alright, John!” snapped Sherlock. 

“Ok,” John replied, backing off. 

The Doctor showed him and Lestrade where to lay the mirror, and Hannah decided to test whether or not this would work by promptly blinking. It did the trick. The Angel stayed quantum locked. The Doctor laid the severed arm on top of the mirror and stepped back, as if admiring the effect of a great work of art thy had just created. To add to the illusion, he said “Viola!” and made that strange hand gesture that people usually make when satisfied with their work.

Hannah giggled and the turned to Molly, whom she had not yet met. “I’m Hannah, by the way.”

“Molly Hooper,” Molly replied, with a friendly smile, shaking her hand.

“I see you’ve already met the Doctor,” Hannah said, nodding in his direction. “Bad luck.”

Molly giggled. “Oi!” the Doctor exclaimed, indignantly. 

“Well, like I said, you took your time!” Hannah replied, folding her arms. Now that the Angel was quantum locked, she felt that she could tick him off properly. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve driven, Hannah, give me some credit!”

“What were you driving; a dodgem car?” 

“Hey!” exclaimed Lestrade. “It’s an automatic!”

Hannah laughed. “Right, sorry, Doctor; I forgot a man of your age couldn’t drive those!” 

“Cheeky,” the Doctor replied, cuffing her before pulling her into a fond hug. He did have a soft spot for Hannah, just as Hannah had a soft spot for him. It wasn’t a romantic relationship, it never would be, but they were best friends and, well, to use a pun, rock solid when together. 

Hannah smiled as he released her. “I was really worried about you, Mister” she said, giving him a gentle prod. 

“Relax!” the Doctor replied, casually throwing his arms wide. “I had everything under control.”

“Really? That’s a first!” But she was teasing him this time. 

“Look, we might be at the Palace, but this isn’t a tea party,” snapped Lestrade. “I still have questions I would like answered.”

“As do I,” said a voice from behind him and they all turned to see Mycroft walking up to them. 

“Ah,” said the Doctor, “and you must be-?”

“Allow me,” said Hannah, grinning. “Doctor, this is Mycroft Holmes; Mycroft, this is the Doctor.”

“The one, the only and the best,” the Doctor added, smugly, straightening his lapels. 

“We meet at last, Doctor,” said Mycroft, stepping up. “I wondered if we ever would. What’s the matter with you?” he asked Sherlock, a look of slight concern in his eyes. 

“Nothing,” snapped Sherlock, straightening up. Suddenly he seemed perfectly fine. To break the tension, John quickly said, “Um, didn’t you want to talk to the Doctor about...something, Sherlock?”

Sherlock seemed to snap back to his normal persona when John said that. “I did,” he replied, calmly, hands in pockets. “And Hannah too.”

Hannah looked surprised. “Ok, well, what are we going to do with this thing?” She nodded at the Weeping Angel. “I mean, we can’t just leave it here; the gardeners might move the mirror and what then? Is there no way of getting rid of it, Doctor? Permanently?”

The Doctor scratched his head. “Well,” he said, “if we could bring the Tardis back here, I could rig up a device to send it back to the beginning of the universe.”

“But someone needs to go back to 221B Baker Street and bring the Tardis here for that, Doctor,” Hannah pointed out. 

“Or,” the Doctor realised, “we could bring the Angel to the Tardis.”

“You are joking?” John said. “That thing just tried to kill us!”

“Trust me,” said Hannah, “I know that look on his face; he’s not joking.”

“So, what, you want to strap that thing to the back of a truck or something?” Lestrade frowned. “With a load of people looking at it to keep it frozen or whatever?”

“Quantum locked,” the Doctor corrected him. “If we had a truck...”

“I happen to have a few contacts,” replied Mycroft, bring out his mobile. “One of them owes me more than a few favours.”

Lestrade gave a hollow laugh and put his hands in his pockets. “And what do you make of all this, Sherlock?”

“I think that this whole thing is ridiculous!” Sherlock replied, shortly, and with that, he turned and swept away from them. 

“He’s in a good mood,” Lestrade commented, drily. 

“He refused to believe what he sees, even when it’s right in front of him,” the Doctor noted. 

John glanced at the Doctor. “You know why he’s acting like this, don’t you?”

“Stems from a traumatic childhood experience,” replied the Doctor. “I’m sure he’ll tell you when he’s ready.”

“Maybe I should talk to him,” Hannah said, thoughtfully. 

John laughed. “Sorry, but I don’t think that’ll do any good.”

“It might,” the Doctor countered, and then he clapped his hands firmly together. “Right, that’s settled then! Moriarty, call for a truck; Lestrade, Molly, you can help me, John...you can help me too; Hannah, go talk to Sherlock!”

“Who put you in charge?” asked Lestrade, incredulously. 

“Just bear with him,” Hannah sighed. “He knows what he’s doing. Most of the time.”

“That’s enough out of you,” the Doctor told her, patting her shoulder. “Go on, off you trot.”

“Really,” John muttered to her. “I don’t think it’ll do any good. I mean, you’ve only just met him. I’ve known him almost a year now and he won’t always open up to me about...emotions.”

“The Doctor’s like that too,” said Hannah, quietly, glancing at Sherlock who was standing over by a neatly clipped hedge, staring into the distance. “But he’s opened up to me before; things he hasn’t even told people he loves.”

“Well, on your own head be it,” sighed John. 

“Trust me,” she replied. “Just...stick with the Doctor.”

She walked quietly up to Sherlock. “So, um, you said you wanted to talk to me?”

“Actually I wanted you present when I talked to the Doctor; I have no desire to talk to him alone,” Sherlock replied, in a calm, flat tone. 

“Yeah, he can be a bit much when you first meet him,” Hannah agreed. 

Sherlock glanced at her, sideways. “Nice try, but it won’t work.”

Hannah frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to talk, put it that way and just leave it.”

“Ok, fair enough,” Hannah sighed. “But can I just say that if you’re scared of those things, I can understand that-?”

“I’m not scared!” Sherlock spat. 

Hannah glanced at him. “Really?”

He sighed and looked away from her. “The whole thing’s ridiculous!”

“Why?”

Sherlock didn’t answer and so Hannah turned and began to walk away from him. “You really want to know?” he asked, suddenly, his tone blunt. 

Hannah turned back to him. “Know what? Your reason for trying not to believe in all this?”

Sherlock nodded once. Hannah nodded back and walked up to him. “Ok, hit me.”

Sherlock looked over the top of her head back towards the Doctor, who was fiddling around with the statue. “Not with him within earshot.”

“Ok, well, shall we take a walk?” Hannah asked. He nodded, once and they both turned and began to walk away from the Doctor and the Weeping Angel and everything else. Hannah found herself wondering, as they walked, just what Sherlock was hiding and what he was now gearing himself up to reveal to her...


	8. "True nobility is exempt from fear."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“So, why don’t you want to talk to the Doctor on your own?” asked Hannah, presently. 

“Because I don’t trust him,” Sherlock muttered. 

“Any reason for that?”

“How can I trust a man who turns up in my life looking completely different to the last time I saw him?”

Hannah stopped and turned to him. “So, you’re accepting you’ve met him before?”

“I don’t like remembering it.”

Hannah hesitated. “You know, when I was back in university, I had a friend I used to hang out with quite a bit. He was a great guy. Then recently I met up with him again, only to discover that he wasn’t human.” Sherlock frowned and she elaborated. “He was an alien who could manipulate people’s memories into believing he was a part of their lives. He never did that with me, for some reason. But memory manipulation meant that some people had other, more important memories missing. And in order for the Doctor to restore their memories, he had to give them these special pills which erased my friend from their false memories. And it also erased him from existence. In other words, the Doctor basically killed him. I was so angry at him. I was even about to give up travelling with him because I was so angry.”

“Sorry, is there a reason you’re telling me this?” Sherlock asked. 

“Well, right after that, we ended up having to battle a whole race of aliens and the Doctor had to resort to genocide; and the look on his face, well, I could tell it was killing him. My point is that whatever happens in our lives, the Doctor’s the one who’s suffering every time he does anything. And most of the time, he’s doing it to save everyone else in the universe. The Doctor gets scared too.”

Sherlock sighed. “You seem to know him better than he knows himself, Hannah.”

“So?” Hannah put her head on one side. “Are you going to tell me why you don’t trust him?”

“It’s not only him. It’s all this.” Sherlock waved an arm in the direction of the Weeping Angel. “As I said to John; what terrify me more than anything in this world are things that I can’t explain which have no explanation whatsoever.”

Hannah nodded, understandingly. “That’s rational.”

Sherlock glanced at her. “Oh, you’re good.”

Hannah blushed. “I’m just a good listener; but I have been able to get the Doctor to open up before now, about things he’s never told anyone else.” She shrugged. “I really do think if you talk to someone about whatever’s eating you, it’ll help.”

Sherlock closed his eyes. “I was eight years old. I was out late at night in Epping Forest. Back then, the anatomy of dead animals always fascinated me, and the forest was a good place to study things. It was tranquil, and I would never be disturbed. Well, it soon got dark and I was about to go home when I got the feeling I was being watched. I looked up and saw them.”

“Them?” Hannah asked.

Sherlock nodded in the direction of the Weeping Angel. He still had his eyes closed. “I didn’t know why they were there. I shouted out “What are you?” They didn’t move; they had their hands over their eyes. I didn’t know if it was someone playing a practical joke or not. I started to walk away. When I turned around, they had stopped right behind me. They looked like that.” He nodded again at the Weeping Angel. Hannah glanced over and saw that all three of the men – John, Lestrade and the Doctor - were attempting to heft the statue onto a cart on wheels that Mycroft had brought up from somewhere. Molly was watching them, but she threw a frantic glance over her shoulder in Sherlock’s direction. “I was terrified,” Sherlock went on. “I asked again “What are you? What do you want?” Again they didn’t say anything. I backed away, tripped over a tree root and fell. When I looked up, they’d moved towards me again. They were so unbelievably fast...”

“You must have been really scared,” Hannah put in, hoping she didn’t sound too much like a psychiatrist. 

“I was,” Sherlock admitted. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.”

“What happened next?”

“Well, as you can imagine, I ran for it. I didn’t even know which was I was going; I just knew that I had to get out of that forest. Each time I looked around, I’d see them right behind me. And it was getting darker; getting harder to see where I was going. And then...well...”

“You got away?” Hannah put in.

Sherlock opened his eyes. “A man suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He was tall with dark hair; wearing a long brown coat. He looked nothing like the Doctor, but he said that was his name.”

Now it made sense to Hannah. Sherlock was having trouble figuring out how the Doctor in this regenerated state could possibly be the same man he was when Sherlock had met him...however many years ago it was; she didn’t know how old Sherlock was, and she wasn’t about to hazard a guess for fear of offending him. 

“He said to trust him, and then he pulled out that...whatever that thing is he’s waving around right now.”

Hannah giggled. “The sonic screwdriver.”

“Right. That. I didn’t know what to do. I stepped away from him. “It’s alright,” he said, “Trust me; I’m the Doctor.”

“He’s said that to me before now too,” Hannah said. 

“But he’s not the same man,” Sherlock insisted. 

“He is,” Hannah replied. “It’s just...it’s complicated. He can explain it better than I can.”

“Well, he’s not the man I met that evening in the forest.”

“Let me guess,” Hannah joked. “The man you met had better dress sense?”

Sherlock looked at her and then, for the first time since Hannah had met him, he laughed. “He wasn’t wearing a bow tie, no.”

Hannah looked at him. In a way, she decided, this man reminded her of the Doctor. It was strange, she reflected, how two people from completely different places in the universe, planets in this case, she added to herself privately, could be so alike in personality. Both were sure of themselves; both were somewhat aloof and vague and not so good at letting people in. There was something enigmatic about Sherlock, a trait that she sometimes noticed to be present in the Doctor. Both were clearly interested in science, although the Doctor, being older and wiser to the universe, probably had more knowledge of the subject than Sherlock. “It’s ok to feel afraid sometimes, you know,” she said to him. “Even the strongest of people fear things.” Like the Daleks, she thought to herself; for all they could talk tough and shout “Exterminate” at the top of their voices, they too had an Achilles Heel; which was the Doctor. “And you were a child then. Of course you’d be scared. I would in that situation.”

“I just never thought it would come back to haunt me,” Sherlock muttered, keeping his eyes fixed on the Doctor’s party with the Angel statue. “I couldn’t explain what was happening; that was what scared me most of all. I pushed it to the back of my mind; told myself it was impossible. Statues can’t move.”

Hannah nodded, thoughtfully. She had felt the same way the first time she had met the Autons. “But they’re mannequins, Doctor!” she had exclaimed, spinning to face him as they tried to navigate their way through the lower levels of one of Cardiff’s biggest department stores, in pursuit of the waxworks. “Mannequins can’t move!”

“These ones can!” the Doctor had replied, in a flippant tone. “Now, don’t be such a scaredy-cat, Hannah and come on!”

“Well,” she said, finally tearing her eyes away from the Doctor, “I’m afraid these ones can. But the Doctor’ll find some way to get rid of them. He might be a little...strange but he knows what he’s doing. Usually.”

Sherlock had a sneaking feeling that John had once said the same thing about him. 

Meanwhile, the Doctor cheerfully pocketed the sonic screwdriver. He had managed to temporarily quantum lock the Angel in position for about five minutes, tops. To be able to quantum lock it permanently would require fantastic power and a sonic screwdriver the size of Kilimanjaro, but it could hold it for a while until they could get it back to Baker Street, providing he kept re-locking it every five minutes. Now that the Angel was loaded onto the small cart, he turned his attention over to where Sherlock and Hannah were standing, cupped his hands around his mouth and called “Hannah!”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “I’m not a dog, Doctor!” she reminded him, before turning back to Sherlock. “Well? Did talking about it help?”

“No,” replied Sherlock, bluntly. “As a matter of fact, I think it made things worse.”

“Oh.” Hannah felt deflated. “Well,” she added, in an attempt to be cheerful, “I tried.”

She began to walk back to the Doctor. “Hannah?” said Sherlock, suddenly. 

She turned back. Sherlock smiled at her. “Thank you.”

Hannah returned his smile and then set off to join the Doctor. 

“Come on,” the Doctor said to her. “No time like the present and all that.”

“And you’d know all about time, wouldn’t you, Doctor?” she smiled. 

He straightened his bow tie, somewhat haughtily. “Touché, Hannah,” he smiled back. 

“Are you sure it wouldn’t just be easier to bring the Tardis here rather than drag that thing over to Baker Street?” Hannah asked. 

“Nonsense, Hannah; this way is much easier.”

“If you say so.” 

“The question now is how many more of them are out there?” the Doctor mused. “Weeping Angels never travel alone.”

“So there could be hundreds of them in London right now?” Hannah asked, a chill settling into the pit of her stomach. 

The Doctor nodded, grimly. “We need to track them all down.”

John, who had been listening without comment, turned as Sherlock finally came up to them. His features, though at first tense, were now relaxed into a look of casual ease. “Come on, John,” he said, sounding more like the old Sherlock that John knew and liked, “sounds like we’ve got a mystery to solve.”

John blinked as Sherlock walked past him to the truck, and then turned to Hannah. “What did you do to him?”

Hannah shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

“Right!” The Doctor clapped his hands together. “Come on, everyone!”

“The game’s afoot!” he and Sherlock, who had just opened the truck door, said in unison, and then they looked at one another in surprise. 

Hannah stifled a giggle. “Alright, but Doctor, this time I drive.”


	9. “Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

Lestrade sat on the back of the truck, keeping his eyes on the Weeping Angel and muttering about not being allowed to drive and the Doctor trying to take over until Mycroft, irritated, snapped “Put a sock in it, will you?”

In the front seat, Hannah handled the truck with perfect precision, considering she hadn’t driven one since the Doctor had taken her back to the 1960’s and they had had to race to find the hideout of some rogue aliens who had decided to invade London. The Doctor had meant to take her back to the 1660’s, one of her favourite periods of history, but, as usual, the Tardis had spotted a problem in time and guided them to fix it. Now as Hannah drove along, she remembered the Doctor saying to her , on that day, as they reached a vast army-type truck, “Can you drive, Hannah? Good, because you’re about to!” before she had even had a chance to open her mouth in response. 

Beside her, the Doctor fidgeted, seeming equally as irked as Lestrade at not being allowed to drive. Squashed in the back, Molly tried to ease the cramped feeling in her legs without disturbing John or Sherlock. She failed, and John tried to make a bit more room for her, all the while wishing he had opted to ride with the Angel after all. But, neither he, nor Sherlock, had any desire to go near that thing ever again, plus Hannah required at least one of them to direct her back to Baker Street. Molly was just glad that Hannah was a better driver than the Doctor and she no longer felt the need to throw her hands over her eyes. 

“So,” said John, presently, trying to sound casual, “what exactly are those things then, Doctor? You never really explained.”

Hannah smiled, knowing that the Doctor could never resist an opportunity to show off his intelligence. The Doctor sat up, straightened his bow tie and twisted about to the three of them in the back. 

“Well, they’re alien beings that have existed ever since the universe was created. They become quantum-locked, like this one is now, when people look at them, therefore they’re unable to move, but when they do move, they’re deadly fast. Even just blinking is enough time for them to attack a victim. They feed on time energy left when they send a victim back through time to a period before they were born, allowing them to age through the years until the year they were snatched away, whereupon they promptly die. The only psychopaths in existence to kill you nicely,” he added, pausing for breath, before continuing. “They feed on the potential energy of the years their victim would have lived out had they not been “killed” by them first. But they can also drain energy from electrical sources as well. Without power, well, like any being, they become powerless. But, we can’t sit back waiting for them to run out of energy,” the Doctor added, turning back to look at the road. 

“So, what’s the plan, then?” asked Hannah, turning into Baker Street, much to her relief. The Doctor had been previously arguing with her that she was going the wrong way, and now she had shown him up. 

“Firstly, we send this one into the Void,” the Doctor replied, unfastening his seatbelt and springing from the truck. “Then, we track down the others, and defeat them.”

“Into the Void?” Hannah attempted to get out and then realised the seatbelt was restraining her from doing so. Embarrassed, she unclipped it and hopped out of the truck. “Doctor, isn’t that dangerous?”

The Doctor smiled at her. “Trust me, Hannah, I know what I’m doing. I just need to open the Time Vortex in the Tardis.”

“I’ll get the goggles, then,” Hannah replied. After all, she didn’t want the vortex energy entering her body and burning her up, or any of their companions, come to that. 

Of course, when Mrs Hudson opened the door, the last thing she expected to see was the Doctor and Lestrade hefting the Weeping Angel statue, which the Doctor had temporarily quantum-locked again, through her door, followed by Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Molly and Hannah, who offered her a smile and a “Don’t ask,” as she passed. To which, Mrs Hudson, replied with a laugh, “Don’t worry, love, living here I’ve learned not to!”

“You did lock the Tardis, didn’t you, Hannah?” the Doctor asked as they stumped into the living room. 

“Of course I did,” Hannah replied. 

“Good girl.” The Doctor motioned her to unlock the Tardis, and after she had done so, he led the statue and Lestrade into the Tardis. 

“Holy-!” exclaimed Lestrade, and that was as far as he got. 

With a knowing grin, Hannah skipped after them. “Still don’t believe in the impossible?” she asked, leaning against one of the railings. 

“Oh, my..!” Molly, stepping into the Tardis behind them, sounded both amazed and confused by the vast interior of the Tardis. 

“How...what?” John looked all around him, as if the answer would be written on one of the Tardis walls. “How..?”

The Doctor, having put down the statue, causing Lestrade to leap back in order to save his toes from being severely squashed, looked up at them, proudly. “It’s dimensionally transcendental, which means...”

“The interior and exterior exist in separate dimensions,” Sherlock finished, bluntly. 

“How do you know that?” asked Hannah.

“The fact has somehow inveigled its way into my subconscious,” Sherlock replied. 

The Doctor, formerly looking disappointed that Sherlock had finished his sentence for him, brightened and clapped his hands together. “Right! Hannah, I need you to-!”

“Stick the kettle on?” Hannah guessed. 

“No, I need you to fetch me a length of copper wire.”

“From where?”

“The cupboard by the bins,” said the Doctor, as though it were obvious. He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket. Hannah shrugged, resignedly, and made to leave.

“You mean it’s bigger than just this?” Molly asked, incredulously. 

Hannah turned to her. “Come and see for yourself.”

Molly followed her into one of the back rooms of the Tardis. “Ah, ah, ah!” the Doctor chided Lestrade, who had been about to fiddle with one of the console controls. “No touching anything; or who knows what might happen, or where we might end up! Hannah, could you bring me some feeler clamps whilst you’re at it?” he called into the back room. “The ones that look like crocodile clips?”

“How big?” Hannah called back.

“The biggest you can find!” The Doctor pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto one of the railings. “Now,” he muttered to himself, turning to the statue, “Time to send you away for good.”

Hannah came back into the room, followed by Molly; both carrying copper wire and feeler clamps apiece. Hannah also carried six pairs of goggles with black lenses to protect their eyes from the vortex light. “Excellent,” the Doctor said, taking the wire from her and uncoiling it. Using the sonic, he was able to attach one end of the copper wire to one of the feeler clamps without the need for any kind of soldering at all. The others watched in fascination. “Hannah,” he commanded, without looking up from his work. “Goggles.”

Hannah held them out, and when he didn’t take them from her, too absorbed in his work, she put them on him for him and then handed them around to their companions. Everyone promptly put them on. The Doctor, whistling “La donna è mobile,” one of his favourite tunes, continued his work, attacking the other feeler clamp to the other end of the wiring, and then, presently, said “Hannah?”

“What do you need?” Hannah asked. 

“I need you to stick the kettle on.”

“Knew it,” Hannah muttered, making her way towards the kitchen. “This is the only reason you’re friends with me, isn’t it?”

“Right, I advise you all to look away, or at least not look directly at the light,” the Doctor told his companions, and then, using the sonic, he opened the vital part of the Tardis in which the Time Vortex resided. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, all John could see was a blaze of white light. 

“Doctor!” Hannah cried suddenly as the Weeping Angel seemed to wake up. Before it could touch the Doctor, however, he thrust the other feeler clamp into the heart of the Tardis. The effect was remarkable; the statue froze and fuzzed, energy sparking from it like tiny jolts of lightening as it shuddered...and then, in a whirl of light that seemed to suck it backwards into the Void, it was gone. The Doctor slammed the grate back into place and removed his goggles as the light died. 

Hannah breathed out in relief. The Doctor did take some risks. 

“Suddenly,” Lestrade muttered, “a cup of tea sounds good.”

Hannah hurried into the kitchen and, after checking whether anyone wanted sugar or not, busied herself with making the tea for the Doctor, herself and their guests; and then hunted for a tea tray. Finally she found a large, antique Victorian one shoved down the side of the refrigerator and, idly wondering just where the Doctor had “borrowed” this particular object from, she carried the tea into the control room. 

The Doctor had straightened up and was pulling his jacket back on, the sonic screwdriver held firmly between his teeth. John was pacing about, examining the controls. Molly was standing, quietly alert, her eyes on Sherlock, who was leaning against the railings, evidently deep in thought. Only Lestrade made any sound at all. 

“Doctor, I do have a few questions about all this,” he said, folding his arms. 

“Mm-hm-mm-hm,” the Doctor replied, through a mouthful of screwdriver, and then, removing it from his mouth, added in distinguishable English, “I’m sure you do; ah, thanks, Hannah!”

“That’s yours,” Hannah said to Lestrade, holding out a cup to him. “Two sugars.”

“Thanks,” he replied, taking a sip. “It’s good,” he added.

“Hannah’s the best at making tea,” the Doctor praised, giving her a gentle nudge.

Flattered, Hannah handed out tea to everyone else. “What happens now?” asked John, presently. “You said something about tracking down other Angels.”

“Other...? Just how many Weeping Angels are here?” spluttered Lestrade, incredulously. 

“Could be millions,” replied the Doctor cheerfully, “although I think you’d have noticed an invasion that large by now.”

“Any chance that was just a rogue one?” Hannah asked. “Travelling alone?”

“No, no, the Weeping Angels always like to hunt in packs,” the Doctor replied. 

“And just how do you plan to track them down?” asked Sherlock, who hadn’t said anything in a while. Hannah wondered whether he was still skeptical about all of this; even though he had seen the Angel for himself, and was currently standing inside a craft that was bigger on the inside than the out. 

The Doctor blinked at him, wondering how to answer, but before he could say anything, Hannah put in “Oh, Doctor! You haven’t got a plan at all, have you?”

The Doctor scowled at her. “Details, Hannah! Let me think!”

“The sand,” said Sherlock suddenly, and everyone turned to look at him. “Surely such matter contains traces you could chase up?”

The Doctor clapped a hand to his forehead. “But, of course! We can use that to trace them to wherever they’re hiding!”

“Sand?” Molly looked at Hannah. 

“We found some sand when that woman disappeared,” Hannah explained. “Like the Angels left a snail trail or something.”

“If they’re hiding,” Sherlock continued, “surely they’d hide within plain sight? After all, it’s the best place to hide anything.”

Hannah quickly finished off her tea and sat up. “That’s it, Doctor!”

“What is?”

“Well, you wouldn’t notice something that’s meant to be there, would you? Like if there were Autons in a department store, you wouldn’t notice them particularly because they look like shop mannequins, right?”

The Doctor frowned. “What are you getting at now, Hannah?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious? Where wouldn’t you take notice of a group of Weeping Angel statues?”

The Doctor looked blank, so she tried again to prompt him in the right direction. “Doctor. Weeping. Angels.”

He still looked blank. “Well, what do you associate with both crying and angels? Doctor? Anyone?”

Sherlock suddenly smiled. “Ah!” He nodded. “Clever! Well done!”

“What?” the Doctor asked, looking at Hannah. 

“Death...”Molly murmured, slowly, piecing together what Hannah was getting at. 

“Ah!” said John. 

“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying,” began Lestrade.

“Hannah, will you just tell me?” The Doctor asked, exasperated.

“A cemetery, Doctor!” Hannah exclaimed. “You wouldn’t take any notice of crying angel statues in a cemetery, would you? Because they’d be-!”

“Completely natural!” the Doctor finished, finally cottoning on. “Hannah, you’re a genius!”

“More so than you, it seems,” she sighed, as the Doctor quickly fiddled with the Tardis controlled to find out where the nearest cemetery to Buckingham Palace could be located.


	10. "Call on me tomorrow and you will find me a grave man."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

With its usual scraping and grinding of gears, which caused all the new travellers but Sherlock to start in alarm until they were reassured that it was “a completely normal noise” by the Doctor, the Tardis materialised in the midst of the graveyard. Already the residue of a pea-soupper had begun to cling around the headstones, the perfect setting for such an occasion, Hannah reflected. 

The Doctor wrinkled his nose, looking visibly twitchy. “I’ve never liked graveyards much,” he said to Hannah. “Such dark and dismal places, and always feels like someone’s going to jump out at you unexpectedly.”

“Which is precisely what the Weeping Angels are going to do,” Hannah reminded him. 

“This is ridiculous!” Sherlock looked around, agitatedly. 

“I know,” Hannah agreed. “A lot of these statues look like they’re weeping; we could be here some time.”

Sherlock half-scowled at her, irritated. “I actually mean this level of technology your friend here seems to possess!”

The Doctor grinned, broadly, at him. “Time Lord technology, my friend!”

“Ok, so we’re here,” said John, hands in pockets. “What now; split up or something?”

“Split up?” Lestrade scoffed. “What is this, Scooby Doo?”

“Good idea, John!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Hannah, you take John and Molly down that way, and Lestrade and Sherlock, you’re with me!”

Sherlock didn’t look too happy with this idea, but he didn’t bother arguing. 

“Ok, so if we see a Weeping Angel, we’ll call,” Hannah replied, tapping her pocket where her mobile phone stuck out in a 3D rectangle, giving her the slight appearance that she had one hip larger than the other. 

“Come on, then, team!” The Doctor tapped Sherlock and Lestrade on their shoulders and then set off at a cheerfully fast pace in the direction he had indicated. Hannah, Molly and John set off in the opposite direction. 

Molly looked around nervously as they walked. To take away the tension still lingering in the air like the fog, Hannah said, casually, “I suppose you probably don’t get spooked much in places like this? I mean, working with dead bodies, right?”

“Right.” Molly gave a tense laugh. 

“This is definitely Sherlock’s department,” John put in. “Once I opened the fridge door and found a severed head in there; he’s stolen it from a morgue for an experiment.”

Hannah laughed. “So, he’s not squeamish, then?”

“In no way!” John chuckled. 

“Keep your eyes open,” Hannah reminded them, and then, suddenly realising that for all they knew there could be a Weeping Angel creeping up on them, she turned around...and felt her jaw drop as she came face to face with one. “Er, guys!” 

She reached out and grabbed John’s sleeve. Both he and Molly turned and stared in horror. Hannah breathed out. “That was a close one!”

John turned away from the Angel, scanning the horizon but he saw none. “Molly, do me a favour, look at this thing whilst I check something.” Hannah said.

Molly kept her eyes fixed firmly on the Angel as Hannah glanced over its shoulder. Her fears were confirmed. Two more Angels were standing beside the Tardis. Mustering up the courage not to blink, Hannah darted over to them. They were within a two metre radius of the ship but they could move fast, she knew. 

“John! Call Sherlock!”

John whipped out his phone. Uh oh. “No signal!” 

“Oh, God!” Hannah groaned, staring at the Angels. “Well, ok, I guess there’s always the old standby. The Doctor doesn’t call me Leather Lungs for nothing.” Drawing in a deep breath, she shouted at the top of her voice “DOCTOR!”

It was a loud, drawn out cry that the Doctor, or indeed anyone in the graveyard at that moment, not that there were any others apart from their party present, couldn’t miss. Nor did he. Pivoting around in the slick motion he always made when turning around, the Doctor pricked up his ears, detecting the urgency in her voice. “Come on!” he announced to his companions. 

“Oh, for God’s sake!” groaned Lestrade as the Doctor sprinted off. Sherlock followed him without comment. 

“Ok!” The Doctor exclaimed, skidding to a halt beside Hannah. “Mental note; leaving Tardis unguarded around Weeping Angels – not a good idea!”

“What do we do?” Hannah asked, looking over her shoulder. John and Molly seemed to be doing a pretty good job of keeping their Angel at bay. 

“Blink.”

Hannah stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“Blink. Trust me, I have an idea.”

“Alright,” Hannah replied, shrugging. “Here goes.”

Simultaneously, they both blinked. Hannah gasped. The Angels were now either side of the Tardis, each facing a Tardis wall. “Doctor!” she exclaimed, desperately. 

“It’s ok! Just keep your eyes open!” The Doctor rushed into the Tardis. A second later, Hannah was astonished to see the ship take off. “Doctor!” Hannah rushed to the spot where the Tardis had just been, and then, realising she was in the path of two Angels, she ducked and rolled away from them. Looking up from the floor, she saw that the Angels were still stuck in the same position they had been two seconds ago. 

“Need a hand?” Sherlock held out an arm to her and Hannah got to her feet. 

“Thanks.” Brushing herself down, Hannah blinked at the Angels but they didn’t move. And then she got it. “They’re looking at each other! They’re quantum locked permanently!”

At which point the Tardis promptly materialised behind them and the Doctor grinned at them. Hannah shook her head in wonder. “Doctor, you do take some risks, you know.”

“Lestrade, Tardis duty!” The Doctor called, jerking a thumb at the Tardis as he ran over to the Angel that Molly and John were keeping occupied. 

Lestrade spread his arms, irritated. “I’m a Detective Inspector, not a security guard!”

“With me doing his job for him all the time, it’s only a matter of time before he’s demoted to that position,” Sherlock muttered to Hannah, who giggled. 

“I heard that!” Lestrade said. 

“Good for you!” Sherlock replied, blandly, walking over to John and Molly. “Alright, John?”

“Oh, you know!” John waved a hand, airily. “Moving stone angel standing right in front of me in a graveyard, probably surrounded by a load of others, but, yeah, I’m ok.”

“Ouch!”

Hannah glanced at Molly who was rubbing her eye. “What’s up?”

“Just...I think something flew into my eye.” Molly blinked. “No, it’s ok, I’m fine now.”

The Doctor looked troubled by this, but said nothing. He examined the Angel in front of them. “This one’s dying from a lack of Time Energy. However, that doesn’t mean we can just leave it here. I’ll get the equipment.”

He sprinted back to the Tardis. Hannah, leaving her friends to keep an eye on this Angel, walked a few paces away from them and looked around. The graveyard was full of statues, and many angel statues, but none with their hands over their eyes, nor any with their faces contorted grotesquely or their hands outstretched to grab a victim. “Great big graveyard and three Angels?” she muttered to herself. “That can’t be right.”

She wandered on a little, keeping an eye open, left and right for any signs of any statues moving, and then, not looking where she was putting her feet, she tripped over something and landed flat on her face. 

John glanced over to her. “Hannah?”

“I’m ok!” Hannah pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and looked around for what she had fallen over. Seeing a large stone angel wing beside her feet, she picked it up. It crumbled at her touch. Looking around, Hannah saw that there were more crumbled pieces of statues littered all around the graveyard. 

“Doctor?” she called, getting to her feet just as he rejoined the group with wires and clamps. Still carrying what little of the Angel wing was left, Hannah hurried up to him. 

“Ah!” The Doctor said. “From dead Angels, or dying ones at any rate. That might explain why we haven’t seen many; only a handful of them left.”

“I guess so many people came here that they were always quantum locked before they could feed,” Hannah agreed, dropping the remains of the wing and brushing the sand from her hands. 

“Well, it is a graveyard,” John pointed out. “I suppose it’s fitting most of them died here.”

“Hm.” Sherlock murmured. 

John glanced at him. “What?”

“Nothing. Just if these creatures are really dangerous, they haven’t really out up much of a resistance to us, have they?”

The Doctor finished wiring up the Angel. “Well, they can’t do much when we’re looking at them.”

“No, it’s just you’d think they’d have a backup plan or something.”

The Doctor shrugged and pointed his sonic screwdriver at the open Tardis doors. The Angel vanished into the Void. “Dying race...they might have just given up the fight.”

“You don’t really believe that.” It was a statement, not a question, on Sherlock’s part. 

“What is in my eye?” Molly moaned, rubbing at it again. 

“Eyelash or something?” Hannah went up to her. “Here, let me see.”

“No, it felt like something flew into my eye.”

“Maybe dust or a bit of leaf or something.” Hannah frowned. “I don’t see anything.”

“I can feel it.” Molly rubbed her eye again and both girls stared in stunned horror. 

The Doctor, meanwhile, who wasn’t paying attention to his best friend at all, exhaled and turned to Sherlock. “Look, sometimes even the most feared creatures in the universe give up when they’re on the verge of being wiped out altogether, and the Angels aren’t so intelligent that they’d think-” Hannah, still with her eyes on Molly, tapped his shoulder. “Not now, Hannah – they’d need a backup plan, intriguing thought, yes, but let’s not forget – I said not now – we’re dealing with alien creatures here, not human beings with-”

Hannah grabbed his arm and yanked him next to her. “What is it, Hannah?” asked the Doctor, annoyed. He shook her off. “Would you not drag me like a sack of potatoes, please?”

Then he too saw what had caused both girls to stare in alarm. Molly held up her hand in shock. Where she had been rubbing her eye was covered in grey sand.

“What is it?” asked John, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

The Doctor quickly grabbed Molly’s arms. “Molly, close your eyes!”

“What?”

“Just trust me.”

Molly did as she was told. 

“What’s going on?” asked Hannah. 

“I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but Molly seems to have an Angel...imprinted in her mind, and if she’s going to live then we need to keep her eyes closed!”


	11. “Keep thy friend under thy own life's key.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“But what does that mean?” exclaimed John, looking both confused and worried at the same time. 

The Doctor sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Molly, did you look the Angel directly in the eye?”

“I think so,” Molly stammered, not daring to re-open her eyes in case the imprinted image of the Angel suddenly leapt out at them. 

The Doctor looked at John. “Looking a Weeping Angel directly in the eye causes the Angel to enter, as if the human eye is a door, and, well, once any door is open, anything can come through it.”

“Yeah, but-”

“If Molly opens her eyes,” said Sherlock, slowly, “the image will-”

“Become real,” the Doctor finished. 

“But if she keeps her eyes closed, the Angel can’t get out, right?” Hannah asked.

“Right,” the Doctor replied. “Molly, keep your eyes closed and you’ll starve the Angel.”

“But how do we get it out?” John said, looking panicked. 

Hannah blanched. “Ah, Doctor?”

The Doctor whipped around and let out an exclamation. “Oh!”

John and Sherlock looked too. “What is it?” asked Molly.

“Doctor?” shouted Lestrade, who was staring at the two Weeping Angels advancing on the Tardis. 

“Molly, eyes closed. Lestrade, keep your eyes open. Hannah, take charge.”

“Do what?” Hannah exclaimed, as the Doctor tore off in the direction of the Tardis again to temporarily lock the advancing Angels. 

“What’s happening?” Molly asked again.

“Angels around the Tardis,” Hannah said, quickly, glancing around. “God, these things just pop up out of nowhere! At least with the Daleks you get some warning!”

“Look, what do we do about this?” Clapping his palms together, John pointed them both at Molly. 

Hannah sighed. “I honestly don’t know. The Doctor’s the brains. I’m just the girl who makes the tea.”

“But to be fair you do it very well,” Sherlock replied with the hint of a smile.

Hannah returned his smile. “You must have picked something up from him,” John insisted, indicating the Doctor with his head. 

Hannah rubbed her forehead, trying to think like the Doctor. “Well-”

The Doctor skidded back into place beside her. “Right, everyone in the Tardis, and Molly,” he dropped his voice, “keep your eyes closed and act like you can see.”

“How is she meant to do that?” John exclaimed, incredulously.

Hannah snapped her fingers. “I know!” She quickly linked arms with Molly and pressed close to her as if she were scared. “I’ll guide her!”

“Smart move, Han!” grinned the Doctor, pivoting about. He took off so quickly that even Sherlock, who was rather a fast walker, had to run to catch up to him. 

“Come on,” Hannah muttered to Molly. “It’s ok, I won’t let you trip.”

“Ok,” Molly replied but Hannah could sense her unease. Together, like partners in a three-legged race, they strode after the Doctor and co. 

“I’m not going to pretend I trust you,” Sherlock hissed to the Doctor. “But is there a way to get...that out of her?”

“There will be,” the Doctor replied, already at the Tardis doors. “When...”

“When what?”

“When I’ve thought it up.”

Sherlock stopped in his tracks as the Doctor ran into the ship. He glanced at John. “I suppose a straight answer’s too much to ask for, then?”

John laughed. 

“Doctor, what if-?” Hannah began and then stumbled into a rabbit hole. “Whoa!”

Somehow or other Molly managed to keep her upright. “You ok?”

“Yeah.”

“What if what?” the Doctor asked, popping his head out of the Tardis. 

“What if, and this is just an idea, what if Molly opened her eyes and the Angel came out? Wouldn’t it make it easier to destroy if we did that?”

“No, Hannah, it wouldn’t!” The Doctor brandished what looked like a giant spring with an egg whisk attached to it. “I probably should have mentioned that that which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel; sorry about that, Molly, but I probably should have also mentioned that I am NOT going to let that happen!”

He ducked back into the Tardis. Hannah frowned. “Doctor, was that a Dalek gun?”

“Just an old one,” the Doctor replied, cheerfully, as if that made a difference. 

Sherlock glanced at Hannah. “And you wondered why I don’t trust him.”

“Hannah,” the Doctor added as Hannah helped Molly into the Tardis, “do you remember what I did with the magnetic clamps I borrowed from Torchwood 1?”

“Doctor, I wasn’t with you when you went to Torchwood 1,” Hannah sighed, shaking her head as she sat down. “That was Rose.”

“Oh, yes.”

Sherlock noted the slight hesitation in the Doctor’s voice when he said that. “Who’s Rose?” asked Molly. 

“She’s-” began Hannah.

“An old friend,” the Doctor interrupted, busily rummaging underneath the Tardis console. “Now, what did I do with my wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey device?”

“Don’t ask!” Hannah said, in response to everyone’s questioning looks. 

“I’m sure I put it under here,” the Doctor muttered. 

“Er, Doctor, can I take my eyes off these things, now?” Lestrade called from outside.

“Oh, yes, get inside!” the Doctor called, and no sooner was the inspector inside, the doors swung closed and the Tardis began to dematerialise. “Hannah, can you pass me my low frequency radio impulse jammer, please? It might come in handy.”

Hannah got to her feet and joined him underneath the console. “Is this it?” she asked, picking up a strange looked device with a television areal at one end. 

“That’s it,” the Doctor replied. 

“This is too much for me,” John exclaimed. “I mean, wibbly...what was it?”

“Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey device,” the Doctor replied, hotly. 

Lestrade chuckled. “How long did it take you to come up with that name?”

The Doctor picked up the jammer and began to fiddle at it with the sonic screwdriver. “Molly, I need your help. Stay where you are,” he added, quickly, as Molly made to step forwards. “Hannah, can you-?”

“Can I what?”

“Get me some of that sand, will you?”

“I’ve got some, actually,” Sherlock remembered, holding up the small jar he had taken with him earlier. 

“Ah, excellent!” the Doctor replied, holding up his hand to take it from him. “Thank you!”

“Look, I don’t suppose there’s a...” Lestrade looked awkward. “In this place, is there? I mean, it’s a spaceship, right?”

The Doctor opened his mouth to question but Hannah understood at once. “Bathroom? Yeah, just out back.”

“Take your pick, we’ve got twelve!” the Doctor added. 

“Twelve?” laughed John. “How big is this ship?”

Hannah smiled. “Big enough to hold a control room, twelve bathrooms, about twenty four bedrooms, a few kitchens, oh and a library and a swimming pool.”

“Now that I have got to see,” Lestrade grinned. 

“Follow me.” Hannah scrabbled out from under the console and led the way into the back of the Tardis. 

“You can’t be serious about the swimming pool,” John added, following her. 

Sherlock followed after a few minutes more and Hannah felt that it was probably due to his distrust of the Doctor. She didn’t say anything to him there and then, but whilst Lestrade was marvelling one of the spectacular bathrooms and John was standing in awe of the enormous swimming pool, she approached him.

“You know,” she said, feeling it was such an effort to talk all of a sudden, “Molly’ll be ok. The Doctor’ll think of something.”

“Hannah, you don’t need to make conversation just to fill a painfully awkward silence,” Sherlock replied, bluntly. 

“Well, I just thought you might be worried,” Hannah replied, slipping her hands into her pockets.

Sherlock turned sharply to her. “Why?” Hannah gave him a look she usually gave the Doctor; the “Oh, come on,” look. “Oh, don’t do that,” Sherlock sighed. “I know what you’re thinking. Molly’s merely a friend.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “The “friend” speech.”

“I care about her like I care about John...and everyone else.” Sherlock waved a hand in the direction of the bathroom. “Lestrade. Mrs Hudson...and all the rest.”

Hannah exhaled. “Very well, I won’t press you, but if you want my opinion-”

“Which I don’t think I do, thank you very much.” 

“I think,” Hannah went on, “you care about her a bit more than you realise.” Sherlock said nothing. He didn’t need to. His expression, whilst unreadable to most, said it all as far as Hannah was concerned. She smiled. “See? You’re not the only one who’s observant, Mr Holmes.”


	12. "As Merry as the Day is Long."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“Ah!” the Doctor exclaimed, holding up a cable that he had tugged out from beneath the Tardis console. He examined it with his eyes, screwing up his nose, wondering whether it would work for what they wanted. 

“What is it?” asked Molly, leaning forwards in her seat.

The Doctor nodded and held the cable out, forgetting that she had her eyes closed and was seated about two feet away from him. “Here, hold this.” Molly, eyes still closed, and thinking he was in front of her, groped about until the Doctor turned, impatiently, and realised his mistake quickly. “Forget it!” he exclaimed as Hannah walked into the room, having left the others to marvel at rest of the Tardis interior. She couldn’t see what harm they might come to there. The Doctor sprang to his feet, brandishing the cable and pressed it on her as he hurried past her. “Hannah, hold this!”

“Do what?” Hannah exclaimed, her usual reaction whenever the Doctor told her to do anything without explaining the reason for it, but the Doctor had already sprinted into the back of the Tardis, muttering to himself “Now, I know I had bicycle wheel back here somewhere...”

Molly giggled, nervously. “What is he doing?”

“It being the Doctor, I shudder to think,” Hannah replied, examining the end of the cable. As if to back up this statement, the sound of a few things being crashed and thumped around the back of the Tardis reached their ears. Hannah sighed. “Now what’s he doing? Doctor!” she called.

“Yes, what is it?” he called back, irritated. 

“Do you need a hand?”

“No, thank you, Hannah. I know what I’m doing!” This was followed by another loud thump, a crash and then the Doctor exclaiming “Oh-wow-d’oh!” as he fell over. Hannah and Molly both burst out laughing. “At least I think I do! Shut up, Hannah!” the Doctor added. 

Hannah tried to sober up. “Alright, Doctor, I believe you!”

The response was another clatter. Molly smiled. “Can I ask you something?”

“As long as it’s not the question who’d win in a fight between the Cybermen and the Sontarans because I have no idea what the answer is,” Hannah replied with a grin, sitting down where the Doctor had just been sitting and waving the cable about.

“No, I was just wondering...well, you two have a bizarre relationship.”

Hannah laughed. “That’s putting it bluntly.”

“How did you two meet?”

“Oh, that’s a long, long story.” 

“Is it romantic?”

Bewildered, Hannah glanced at her. “Oh! No, the Doctor and I aren’t together! People think that because we argue so much, but, no, no, we’re just good friends.”

“Oh!” Molly laughed. 

“Nah,” Hannah added. “He’s more like a loveable older brother, really. Although, I do actually have an older brother who is nothing like the Doctor. Thankfully.”

“I heard that!” the Doctor’s voice came from somewhere in the centre of the Tardis.

Molly smiled. “I wish that Sherlock could take a leaf from his book sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just that sometimes it’s like he doesn’t see what other people are feeling.” Molly went quiet for a second. “And he can say horrible things, sometimes without meaning to.” 

Hannah looked up at her. “You...really like him, don’t you?”

Molly blushed and ducked her head. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not really, but I’m good at sensing these things. The Doctor calls it emotional empathy.” 

“He doesn’t think of me like that,” Molly went on. 

Hannah clambered to her feet and leaned on the railing beside her. “I think he cares about you more than he knows he does.”

Molly shook her head. Hannah put her arm around her. Then, there was another loud crash, a thud...and then a sickening crunch from the back room, and both girls turned their heads in the direction of the doorway as Lestrade came into the console room with his arms full of various metal boxes and other pieces of “junk” as Hannah put it from the back of the Tardis. “What am I doing with this?” he asked Hannah.

“Um...” Hannah got up and helped him. “Dump it down here for now. What was that crunch?” Then, turning, she called “Doctor, that had better not have been my cup from Cetis Alpha!”

“No, Hannah, unfortunately, that was my fez box!” came the reply.

“Oh, that’s alright, then!”

“Fez box?” repeated Lestrade, dazed.

“Fezzes are cool,” the Doctor replied, emerging back into the room, armed with the sonic screwdriver and an iron. He was shortly followed by John and Sherlock. “Aren’t the, Hannah?”

“If you say so,” Hannah replied, causing even Sherlock to look amused. She frowned. “What are you doing with the iron, Doctor?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll put it back together again,” the Doctor replied, brushing off her question. 

John looked over all the “junk” from the centre of the Tardis. “What exactly is all this for, Doctor?”

“You’ll see when I name it,” the Doctor replied. “Cable please, Hannah.”

Hannah handed it to him. “Go on,” Molly said to her. “You were going to tell me how you two first met.”

“Was I?”

“Ah, I remember it as if it were yesterday!” the Doctor grinned.

“It could have been with this thing!” Hannah replied, tapping the Tardis console and then turning to face the others. “Very well.

“It all happened one Saturday. I mean, for me, it was supposed to be just a normal day. I was working over in Westminster-”

“Westminster?” John interrupted. 

“Yeah.”

“Well, where do you live?”

“Covent Garden,” Sherlock clipped in before Hannah could speak. He glanced at John. “Only twenty minutes away from our street.”

“Ok, seriously,” Hannah said, interrupting herself, “how do you do that?”

Sherlock smiled. “Perfectly simple when you’re observant.”

“Oh, come on!” The Doctor looked up at Hannah. “I want to hear the rest!”

“You were there, Doctor!”

“I know, but it makes a good story!”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I was just getting off the bus, when it happened.”

“What happened?” asked Lestrade.

“Well, there was a little old lady in front of me, struggling with bags of shopping. She bumped into the postman and suddenly one of the bags broke open. There was a bottle of vinegar inside and it smashed open.”

“Is this going somewhere?” Sherlock interrupted. John shot him a “Be quiet” look. 

“Well, the way the postman reacted to the vinegar, you’d think someone had thrown rat poison all over him.”

“That was where I came in,” the Doctor interrupted, grinning. 

“Suddenly I find myself being pushed to one side by a madman in a brown suit and a bow tie,” Hannah went on. “The postman scarpered, and the madman went after him.”

“Why?” asked John, looking now extremely confused. 

“Because he wasn’t a postman,” the Doctor replied, busy fiddling with the iron, “He was a Slitheen pretending to be a postman.”

“What’s a Slitheen, when it's at home?” asked Lestrade.

“A member of an alien family from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius,” the Doctor replied, casually. 

“Try saying that when you’re drunk,” Hannah added, grinning. “Anyway, seeing this madman run after my employer’s postman naturally made me curious, so I ran after him.”

“And discovered the truth about the postman,” the Doctor replied. “Took him down with a jar of pickled onions.”

“Pickled onions?” Lestrade shook his head. “Now I know you’re joking.”

“Nope!” The Doctor shook his head, squinted at what he was doing, rummaged, tugged and then pulled out some vital components from the iron. “The Slitheen are made from living calcium so the only way they can be defeated is with...”

“Acetic acid,” John finished, remembering something he had read in medical school. 

“Correct!” The Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at him. “And once Hannah learned that they can compress their bodies down into a human skin suit – and I mean that literally-”

“We ran back to check on Mrs Robbins,” Hannah said, and then broke off, trying not to think about what they had found.

“Long story short,” the Doctor put in for her, kindly, “she’d been killed by a Slitheen and we eventually managed to defeat said Slitheen with Rakweed.”

“That’s a plant that causes them to explode if they eat too much and then come into contact with a high frequency, like a schoolbell or something,” Hannah added. 

“Boy!” Lestrade laughed. “You two really lead a mad life!”

The Doctor grinned, brightly. “And that’s how this team,” he indicted Hannah and himself with the sonic, “was formed.” The screwdriver whirred and he grinned. “Ah, got it!”

“What?” asked Hannah.

“The correct frequency. Now...” The Doctor applied the screwdriver to the device he had rigged up. “Let’s all just pray that this works...”


	13. "Talking isn't doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

Hannah couldn’t help wincing as she eyed the device that the Doctor had rigged up from all kinds of bits of junk he had pulled out of various rooms of the Tardis. To her mind, it looked something like a cross between a television camera and a theatre spotlight with random debris stuck here and there, like a bicycle wheel and various parts of the iron. In spite of all her teasing, though, Hannah had decided a long time ago that the Doctor could fix everything and anything, with the possible exception of death, and if there was one man who could make everything better, it was the Doctor. She trusted him immensely but even so she felt a quiver of nerves in her stomach. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Doctor,” she sighed, her tone now completely serious. 

“Hannah, have I ever given you reason to think otherwise?” the Doctor pointed out. He turned to Molly with a kind smile, even though she couldn’t see it. “I am one hundred percent certain that this will work.”

“And if it doesn’t?” John demanded, anxiously. 

“Then I’ll come up with something else. But trust me, it will. Molly, do you trust me?”

Molly took a deep breath and nodded. Hannah helped her to her feet. “Alright,” the Doctor said, turning the wheel on the device. It revved up like a high-pitched motorcycle. The light at the end flashed on. “Now,” the Doctor continued, taking the sonic screwdriver and pressing into Hannah’s hand, “once this thing is out of Molly, it’s going to be hungry, so precision timing and keeping your eyes fixed on it, without blinking, is crucial! Got it?” Everyone nodded. “Now, Molly,” the Doctor went on, patting her shoulder gently as he held the device up to her face, “when I say “Three,” I want you to open your eyes and stare very hard into this machine. Don’t look away and refrain from blinking until I say so. Alright?” 

“Alright.” Molly bit her lip and tried not to appear nervous. 

“What do you want me to do with this?” Hannah asked, holding up the sonic screwdriver. 

“I’ve already set it to quantum lock. The second the Angel materialises, just press the button and it’ll do the rest.”

“And then what?” John asked. “We’re stuck with one of those things in here with us?”

“I imagine he’s already taken that into account, John,” Sherlock replied, testily. 

The Doctor nodded. “Once it’s locked, we can wire it up to the Vortex again.”

“I don’t like you doing that,” Hannah sighed, raising the sonic at the ready. 

“Hannah Viviane Waters, you are NOT my mother,” the Doctor sniped back. “Now, is everyone ready?”

“Ready,” Molly stammered. 

“Go ahead, Doctor,” Hannah replied, watching for where the Angel would materialise. 

The Doctor took a deep breath. “One-” 

“It’s not going to hurt her, is it?” Lestrade interrupted. 

Sherlock had been thinking the same thing but would never admit it. The Doctor, looking annoyed at having been interrupted, fixed him with a glance. “Do you think I’d be so casual about it if it would?” Lestrade shut up at once, and the Doctor started up again. “Alright, Molly, one, two, three.”

Molly opened her eyes. Hannah, who had been expecting the process to happen much faster, drew in her breath...and then let it out, slowly, as the image of the Angel began to materialise almost like a computer picture loading at three pixels per minute. “Good,” the Doctor murmured, wanting to give Molly another reassuring pat on the shoulder, but deciding it was best if he kept her focused until the Angel was out of her. “Eyes open everyone,” he reminded them, though there was really no need; they were all staring at the materialising Angel. After what seemed like a day, however, the Angel’s image finally fixed itself into solid stone. 

Hannah immediately took her cue and pressed the button on the sonic. The Angel became locked even as it looked ready to reach out a hand and snatch at one of them with its long talons. The Doctor lowered the device and patted Molly’s shoulder. “Well done,” he said to both women, and then he turned to Molly, who was rubbing her eyes. “How do you feel?”

Molly checked her hand. No more grey sand was coming out of her eyes. She managed a shaky smile. “Fine. Same as normal. Thank you.” 

Hannah, having confirmed that the Angel was indeed fully locked, by blinking, now lowered the sonic screwdriver and hurried up to her. In answer to Molly’s look of confusion, she smiled and said, apologetically, “Sorry, but you look like you need this.” Then, to everyone’s surprise, she gave Molly a hug. Molly, accepting that Hannah was, in fact, right, returned it. The Doctor grinned at them both and then set about fiddling with the parts of the Tardis that could open the Time Vortex. 

John cleared his throat. “Can I help, at all?” he asked. 

“Hold this,” the Doctor replied, thrusting a large vital part of the Tardis’ systems at him. “And be careful not to drop it.”

Gingerly, John took it from him. “Why? Is it fragile?”

“No, but it’ll make a terrible clang if it hits the floor,” the Doctor replied, still busily fiddling. “Oh, Hannah,” he added, in an irritated tone, “get the goggles, will you?” 

Hannah obeyed. Sherlock, standing near the doors, watched the Doctor work without saying anything. Secretly all of this, the complex systems of the Tardis and the way that the Doctor could make something from nothing like he just had done, fascinated him, but he would never admit to it, of course. 

“Aand action!” the Doctor trilled, finally, and, using the same equipment as he had used before, he wired up the Angel to the Vortex. Everyone promptly looked away from the light as it flashed, and the Angel vanished. The Doctor pulled off his goggle and wiped his brow. “Right,” he sighed. “Now-!”

“Now we have to just do that to a million others,” Sherlock finished, bluntly. 

Everyone glanced at him. The Doctor furrowed his brow, flustered. “Yes, yes, although not a million other, probably...couple of hundred at most.”

“And they could be anywhere, not just in London,” Sherlock went on. 

“Oh, God,” John muttered, seeing where this was going. He closed his eyes. 

“I’m well aware of that,” the Doctor replied, his tone firm and testy. 

“We’ve got rid of them so far,” Hannah piped up, also sensing that the Doctor was about to snap. 

“We’ve been lucky so far, Hannah, not the same thing,” the Doctor corrected her. 

“And how many more people might have been snatched by them while we’ve been standing here?” 

That one did it. The Doctor whipped around and stepped up to face Sherlock. Hannah knew, even from the stiff posture, that his dander was up, no doubt about it. “Look, I know you have trust issues, but-!”

“Issues?” Sherlock scoffed. “I don’t have issues!”

“Well, you’re not great at letting people in,” Lestrade began, scratching his head. Sherlock shot him a glare. “Shutting up!”

“There is no need to suspect that I don’t know what it is I’m doing!” The Doctor finished, as if he hadn’t been interrupted at all. 

“And there’s no need for you to lose your temper, Doctor,” Hannah began but she was cut short by Sherlock.

“You expect to be able to just take down a couple of hundred of those things,” Sherlock waved a hand at where the Angel had previously been, “by yourself?”

“Now, look-!”

“You turn up here with technology far beyond the comprehension of humanity and expect everyone to trust you?”

Hannah had had enough of this. Taking a firm step up to the console, she flicked the switch that caused the Tardis doors to open. The Doctor turned to her. “Hannah, what are you doing?”

“Look, I’m sorry, Doctor, but you two are driving me crazy!”

“Driving us all crazy,” Lestrade added. 

The Doctor frowned at Hannah. “Well, I’m sorry, but there’s really no need for you to leave the Tardis, Hannah.”

Hannah walked up to them, her expression unreadable, even to Sherlock. “I’m not.” Then, spinning them both around, she gave them both a shove out of the Tardis and promptly locked the doors behind them. The Doctor spun about, indignantly. “Hannah, let me in!”

“No!” Casually, Hannah caused the Tardis scanner screen to flicker into life. “You two are going to settle this like adults, and until you do, you’re not coming in! End of!” Then, turning to the stunned faces of her new friends, she grinned. “So...anyone for tea?”

The Doctor reached into the pocket of his jacket for the sonic...and then remembered he’d given it to Hannah. He sighed and then hammered on the door. “Hannah, I mean it, let me in.” There was no reply. With another sigh, he turned to Sherlock. “I can pick them!”

Ever so slightly amused by seeing the Doctor so agitated, Sherlock replied “So, she’s not the first, then?”

“Not by a long chalk,” the Doctor replied, and then he leaned against the Tardis doors, arms folded, and sighed upwards. There was another pause, and then the Doctor looked at Sherlock, seriously. “Look, it doesn’t help to bottle things up.”

“Now you sound like John,” Sherlock replied, digging his hands into his pockets. 

“Look, why don’t you just tell me why you don’t trust me. Understandable, of course; I’m just a mad man with a box that’s impossibly bigger on the inside than the out...”

Sherlock managed a smile. “It’s as impossible as you are.”

“Enlighten me.”

“You can’t be the same Doctor in the woods.”

The Doctor didn’t have to ask what he meant by that sentence at all. “I am. I mean, I’ve changed, of course I have. Time Lords like me don’t age, well, not for years and years anyway; they just regenerate.” He smiled at the bewildered look on Sherlock’s face. “I can even tell you what I was wearing then; brown suit, white dabs, long brown coat; I do miss that outfit, you know.”

Sherlock flinched, slightly, at the knowledge that the Doctor was absolutely correct about the outfit. Yet, part of him was still stubbornly unsure. “How can I believe what you’re saying is true?”

“Oh, Lord,” the Doctor sighed, and then he stepped up to him. “I was hoping to never have to do this ever again, but...here goes nothing!”

In one swift movement he headbutted Sherlock. Both men yelped and recoiled backwards, and suddenly Sherlock found his mind filled with memories that weren’t his own; a blond woman crying out as she was dragged backwards into the Void and then caught by a man who appeared out of nowhere, a young black woman laughing with William Shakespeare, a red-haired girl in a purple tunic-top sprinting through a library, people who looked like cacti, a white haired young man laughing, an older man holding out a pistol...and then regeneration, orange light, energy breaking the inside of the Tardis to bits, and a familiar voice, from his past, saying “I don’t want to go,” before it was replaced by the Doctor’s voice exclaiming “Legs! I’ve still got legs!”

“OW!” The Doctor groaned, rubbing his forehead and squinting at Sherlock. “You alright?”

“Define that,” Sherlock replied, rubbing his own forehead and blinking at the Doctor. “It’s still...impossible.”

His voice sounded less certain than before. “Welcome to my life,” the Doctor replied, patting his shoulder. “Now do you trust me?”

Sherlock looked him up and down. The face, the hair, the voice, the clothing, the demeanour, they were all different, all changed, and yet, and yet, it was, undeniably, the Doctor. He could just tell now. He nodded. “I trust you, Doctor.”

Watching the scene on the scanner, Hannah glanced at the others as they sipped their tea. “Glad they got that sorted. I think they can come back in now.”


	14. "One Pain is cured by Another."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“Sherlock, are you ok?” exclaimed John the second Hannah had opened the doors. He was staring at the Doctor in alarm. “What was the head butt for?”

The Doctor rubbed his own forehead. “How do you think I feel?” he exclaimed, rather indignant that everyone was more worried about Sherlock than him. “I always said I’d never do that again; make a note of that, Hannah; no more head butts for sharing memories. Ok?”

Hannah tried not to giggle. “I’m guessing you had a good reason for it?”

“When do I ever do anything without good reason?” The Doctor quickly held up a finger to silence her before she could respond. “Don’t answer that, Hannah.”

Sherlock still seemed a little stunned, and not from the head butt. He glanced at Hannah. “Did you know he can change his appearance?”

“Mm.” Hannah nodded, leaning on the console as the Doctor flicked a few buttons. “Pity he doesn’t do it more often.”

“Oi!” the Doctor exclaimed, swivelling to face her, as the others laughed, even Sherlock. 

“I meant your clothing, Doctor.” Hannah nodded at the bow tie. 

The Doctor scowled, fondly, and straightened it. “Bow ties are cool,” he reminded her, and Hannah giggled. “And speaking of appearances,” the Doctor added, holding out his hand to her, “a sonic screwdriver does not go with that jacket, Hannah.” Hannah pulled the sonic out of her pocket, where it had been sticking up, rather oddly, like some obscure silver and green flower, and handed it back to him. “Thank you,” the Doctor said, slipping the sonic back into his jacket. “Now,” he added, closing the Tardis doors, “let’s see where-”

Before he could finish, Lestrade’s mobile rang. “Sorry, hold that thought,” Lestrade said, awkwardly, answering it. “Hello? What? Yeah, hold on, say that again. Another one? Right.” He hung up and then looked to both Sherlock and the Doctor. “Another disappearance, exactly like the first.”

“Where?” the Doctor asked, already setting the Tardis into flight mode.

“The British Museum.”

“Of course,” Hannah muttered. “Another good place for statues to hide.”

Molly looked nervous and now she spoke up. “But...what do they want, these things?”

The Doctor looked up at her. “Nothing. Apart from to live; and they can do that by killing you nicely, sending you back through time and space to age to death.” 

Hannah rubbed her forehead. “I thought you said that they wanted the Tardis once, Doctor?”

“Oh, they gave up trying to get that a long time ago,” the Doctor replied, airily. 

“They just surrounded the Tardis a few minutes ago,” Sherlock pointed out.

“Well, yes, they probably wanted to drain all the energy from it,” the Doctor agreed, calmly, landing the Tardis. “But that’s not going to happen.”

“We hope,” Hannah added.

The Doctor flicked open the Tardis doors. “Hannah, if you’re so worried about the Tardis, then you can stay and guard it.”

“Wha-?”

“Come on,” the Doctor added, stepping out of the ship.

“No, hold on a sec!” Hannah grabbed the Doctor by the sleeve. “You can’t just leave me here like some...carpet bag or something!”

“Call it penance for locking us out of the Tardis,” the Doctor replied, wriggling free. 

“Oh, so first I’m the tea girl, then I’m your guard dog?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hannah! That was K9!”

“Doctor!”

“What?”

Hannah could see that she wasn’t about to get through to him that way, so she tried a different tack. “Alright,” she said, folding her arms, “what if more than one Angel turns up and I can’t keep an eye on all of them at once? What then?”

“John can stay with you,” said Sherlock, brightly. “You don’t mind, do you John? Of course you don’t.”

John rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice, does it?”

“Yeah, but-!” Hannah began. 

“Good, that’s settled!” The Doctor patted her shoulder. “Let’s find this Angel.”

Hannah would have kicked the Tardis in anger, but she decided against it. After all, the poor Tardis had never done anything to her that deserved a good kicking. Leaning against the doors, she sighed as the Doctor, Sherlock, Lestrade and Molly set off. “Remind me,” she said to John, “when the Doctor gets back, to make a great big bowl of fish fingers and custard...and then dump it over his head!”

John blinked. “Fish fingers and custard?”

“Yup!”

“Fish...fingers and custard?”

“Yeah.” Hannah glanced at him. “His favourite.”

John exhaled, and folded his arms. “Didn’t see that one coming.” They stood in silence for a second and then John turned to her. “So...what was all that head butting all about, then?” 

“Well, the last time the Doctor did that to somebody, it was because he needed to show them something about his past...” Hannah broke off, realising just how odd that sounded to someone who didn’t know the Doctor very well. She could remember her initial reaction to seeing the Tardis for the first time. “Yeah, he sort of has...” she paused, scratching her head and trying to find the right word, “powers...like that.”

“Powers?”

“Well, yeah, I mean he’s Time Lord and all that.”

“Time Lord?” John repeated. 

“Yeah.” Hannah turned to him. “Hang on, did we not mention that?”

“Do you mean he controls time?” John asked, furrowing his brow, trying to figure out just how one man could do that.

“Well, no. Not exactly. You see, the Time Lords have this non-linear perception of time, so they can see everything as it is, was or could have been...at least that was how the Doctor described it...but they can manipulate time, even though they’re meant to be a race known for not meddling into other people’s lives...though the Doctor does it all the time...as long as they don’t cross their own timelines...and there are things they can’t always interfere with, like the Time War-”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on.” John held up his hands. “Time War?”

“Yeah. The Last Great Time War, between the Time Lords and the Daleks...you must remember the Daleks? They tried to invade Earth a while back.”

“I did hear about that,” John agreed, “but I don’t think they got as far as Baker Street. Wait, you’re saying that the Time Lords were at war with those robot-things?”

Hannah blinked at him and then burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it; it was just the idea of the Daleks being thought of as robots that got to her. “No, they’re not robots, but I can see how you’d think that.” Sobering up, she grinned at his bewildered expression. “And yes, in answer to your question, the Time Lords were at war with the Daleks.”

“And the Time Lords won?” John guessed.

“The Doctor won,” Hannah replied. “Both races were almost entirely wiped out...although somehow the Daleks keep on coming back. The Doctor was the only survivor.”

John was silent for a few moments as he digested this information. “He’s alien, isn’t he?”

“Yep.”

“Should have known.”

Hannah glanced at him. “You ok?” 

John breathed out. “Well, I don’t know. One minute everything’s perfectly normal, and the next I’m finding out that aliens exist and are trying to conquer the Earth.”

“You must have had an inkling there was more out there, though?” Hannah asked. “What about the Titanic ship that almost crashed into Buckingham Palace? Or the Christmas before that; with that great star-shaped ship that fired at Earth? Or before that, the great big spaceship hanging over London?”

John smiled. “Yeah, but we’re British.”

Hannah had to agree with him. “Yeah. Never talk about stuff like that. If this was America, though-”

Promptly the lights went out. “Oh!” Hannah finished. “Lovely!”

“Have you got a mobile?” John asked, quickly rooting for his own. 

“Yeah, and actually I think there’s a torch somewhere in the Tardis,” Hannah replied, flipping open her phone. 

John held his up, turned to the right...and came face to face with an Angel. “Um...Hannah?”

Hannah glanced around and then realised just why the lights had gone off. Panic flowed through her and as she turned, she saw that another Angel had frozen with one arm reaching out to grab the Tardis. 

“Get away!” Hannah cried, and forgetting that she was dealing with stone rather than flesh and blood, she brought her arm about, fist clenched, and struck the Weeping Angel with all her strength. It did the trick, surprisingly. The Angel was balanced on tiptoe, reaching for the Tardis, so Hannah’s blow send it toppling backwards onto the floor. It hit the marble and cracked...and it wasn’t the only thing to do so. Hannah let out a scream of pain as her fist connected with the stone. John was momentarily torn between helping her and keeping an eye on the other Angel. In the end, he settled for asking “Are you alright?” whilst trying hard not to blink. 

It was an effort for Hannah to keep her eyes open too. Her hand was stinging all over and she was sure that that couldn’t be good. Biting her lip to keep from closing her eyes, she gave a little gasp. “Not really! Better cover your ears! DOCTOR!” 

In another part of the museum, the Doctor and Sherlock had both bent down to examine a small patch of grey sand where a young woman was claiming her boyfriend had just been standing. The young woman in question was babbling to Lestrade that she had no idea what had just happened; that one minute he had been standing right there and the next he had gone and this Angel statue that had been standing there had also vanished. Finally, Sherlock, who had had enough of this, put away his magnifying glass and got to his feet. 

“Yes, your boyfriend’s been sent back to the past to die after a long and happy existence, and you’ll probably receive some message from him any time now saying how much he misses you but not to mourn for him, some heartfelt, sentimental message like that; yes, it’s very tragic, but probably for the best,” he said, bluntly, “so please stop wasting our time with incoherent babbling.”

“Sherlock,” hissed Lestrade as the young woman blinked at him.

The Doctor got to his feet. “That is pretty much it, I’m afraid,” he said, softly to the young woman. “I’m really sorry.”

Before Sherlock could ask why he was bothering to get soft, the shout of “DOCTOR!” reached them. The Doctor was off quicker than a cheetah, with the others running right behind him. The second Hannah saw him, she felt it was alright to start cringing and focusing her attentions on her hand rather than the Angels.

“Ok!” the Doctor exclaimed, skidding up to the one she had knocked down and aiming the sonic screwdriver at it. “Get on that one,” he called to the others.

“Alright, John?” Sherlock muttered, running up to stare at the Angel’s wicked face as John took a breather, or rather, a blink. 

“I’m fine, it’s Hannah who’s hurt,” John replied.

The Doctor, having locked the Angel on the floor, temporarily, looked up sharply. “Hannah?”

Hannah rubbed her hand. “I sort of...punched it.”

With the energy of a rabbit, the Doctor sprang to his feet, locked the other Angel and then swivelled to Hannah. “You punched a statue?” Lestrade repeated, incredulously.

“I forgot it was stone,” Hannah muttered, still cringing and rubbing her hand. 

“Only you, Hannah,” sighed the Doctor, taking hold of her hands in both of his. “Brace yourself.”

“Ow!” Hannah exclaimed, as he squeezed her hand and it clicked, loudly. She shook it. 

“Better?” The Doctor asked.

“Yeah.” Hannah flexed her fingers. “Thanks.”

John blinked at her. “How..?” The Doctor turned to him with a smug grin and John shook his head. “I’m not even going to ask how you did that.”


	15. "This Above All..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“Now let’s see,” the Doctor muttered, logging up something on the Tardis computer. “Six Weeping Angels down,” for they had managed to send the two in the museum back through the Vortex before gathering back inside the Tardis once again. “Omega knows how many left to go.”

Blimey, Hannah thought, the Doctor must be worried. He only ever used the expression that put Omega in the same band as God or any other religious deity when he was deeply troubled. “So, what’s the plan, then?” she called up from beneath the console. 

“What are you looking for, anyway?” asked Lestrade who was sitting on the steps leading down to Hannah’s level. With all that had happened so far, nothing that either she or the Doctor pulled out of the Tardis could shock him that much anymore. 

“My wok,” Hannah replied, moving a stack of books to one side. Since her last encounter with the Angels had resulted in her breaking half the bones in her hand, Hannah had decided that she would feel much safer with the thing than without it. “Oh, Doctor, you really should be more organised! You’re getting untidy in your old age!”

“Oh, ha, ha!” the Doctor called back down, before shooting John a sideways glance. “Is it my imagination or are young people getting cheekier?”

John stifled a laugh. “It’s not just you.”

“Aha!” Hannah pulled the wok out from beneath a pile of other assorted bits of “junk” and held it up. “I knew I’d left it under here somewhere!”

“I don’t think now’s the time to be cooking,” Lestrade said. 

Hannah pulled herself up to sit opposite him. “Have you ever been whacked around the head with one of these?” She whirled it in her hand and held it up, deftly. “It makes for a great weapon.”

Lestrade laughed. “You look like Thor wielding his hammer.”

“Funny that,” Hannah replied, casually, turning her head in the direction of the console. “He was the one who taught me my best moves with this thing.”

“What?”

“Right!” The Doctor straightened up and then looked around the room. “Come on, I’m being very amazing over here and no one’s taking any notice!”

Hannah grinned and clambered to her feet. “Alright, Doctor; what’s your genius done now, then?”

“Well,” the Doctor explained as everyone else gathered around to take a look at the screen, “I’ve done a little tinkering and now, hopefully, if I’ve done it all properly, which I’m 99.8% sure that I have done, by the way, this screen,” he tapped it lightly with the sonic screwdriver, “will show us where the rest of the Weeping Angels, if any, have invaded all across the Earth.”

“Well, that’s brilliant,” Molly chimed in.

“Thank you,” the Doctor grinned. 

“How does it work?” Hannah asked. 

“Just a matter of pressing this button.” The Doctor did so. Nothing happened. The screen remained lifeless. 

“Either there aren’t any more or you’ve done something wrong,” Sherlock clipped in.

The Doctor frowned and tried again. Still nothing. He frowned again for a few minutes and then his eyes widened with realisation and he clapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, Hannah, you were right! I need to be more organised! I completely forgot the DNA sample!”

“DNA sample?” she repeated.

“Yes, the Tardis data banks need something like blood or hair or skin cells to track someone, or something,” the Doctor sighed, fiddling with some buttons. 

Hannah grinned. “Like cloning?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, you do have some skin cells.”

Everyone turned to glance at Sherlock, who merely raised an eyebrow and produced something from his pocket with the merest hint of a smirk on his face. “After all, what is dust made from?”

The Doctor seized the packet of grey sand that Sherlock had taken with him from the lab and gave it feverish kiss. Sherlock quickly took a step backwards just in case the Doctor tried to kiss him too. Hannah wouldn’t have put it past him. At any rate, however, the Doctor didn’t kiss Sherlock, he simply grinned and emptied the packet into a small opening next to the screen. “Well done, Sherlock; I should take you along more often!”

Hannah gave him an indignant tap on the shoulder. “And what am I?”

“You’re the girl who makes the tea and is very good at it,” the Doctor replied, cheekily, before pressing the button.

“Keep this up and it’ll be the last time I make you any,” Hannah muttered as the screen flickered into life. The group watched as the screen scanned a map of the entire world and then a red dot flashed up in the midst of the United Kingdom. 

“Aha!” the Doctor exclaimed, tapping away at the keyboard and pulling the image closer. “Well, the good news is that there’s a small party left just in England and the rest of the world’s Angel free!”

“What’s the bad news?” John asked. 

The Doctor straightened up and straightened his bow tie. “They’re in just about the worst possible place to fight them.”

“Oh, great!” Lestrade sighed. 

“Still,” the Doctor added, brightly, clapping his hands together, “I like a challenge, and as long as no one blinks we’ll be alright!” He quickly set the Tardis into motion. “Next stop, Epping Forest!”

Sherlock blanched and Hannah, remembering what he had told her, felt a quiver of worry in her stomach. “How is that the worst possible place?” Lestrade asked. 

“It’s a forest!” The Doctor said it as if it were obvious and when Lestrade still looked blank, he shook his head in wonder. “Honestly, what do they teach in schools these days? Forests make good hiding places, am I right?”

“Right,” John agreed. “It’s a good place for soldiers to take the enemy by surprise.” 

“God, and that’s just what we need with these things,” Hannah sighed, sarcastically.

“Oh, we’ll be fine!” The Doctor insisted.

“Funny how every time you say that, we usually end up on the brink of death,” Hannah mused.

Molly giggle, uncertainly. The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Still don’t trust me, do you, Hannah?”

“Nope,” Hannah replied with a mischievous look. 

“Atta girl,” the Doctor nodded before the Tardis signalled their arrival and he quickly opened the doors and logged up th scanner. “None in sight,” he reported, “but just to be on the safe side, I think we’d better hide the Tardis.”

“Hide in the Tardis?” Lestrade repeated.

“No, hide the Tardis,” the Doctor corrected him, stepping from the box and pulling out the sonic screwdriver. 

“How are we supposed to hide the Tardis?” Hannah asked, poking her head out of the doors and having a look around. “It’s a great big blue box, you know what I mean?”

The Doctor waited until they were all out of the Tardis and then pointed the screwdriver at it. In an instant, the Tardis blended into the background until it was no longer visible. “That’s how you hide a Tardis, Hannah,” the Doctor replied, tapping her on the shoulder with the screwdriver. 

Keeping a tight grip on the wok, Hannah whirled about and peered into the greenery behind them. Suddenly without the Tardis in sight she felt more vulnerable than a snail without its shell. She took a deep breath. “Come on, then, team,” she said, her voice brighter than she actually felt. 

“We’ll stick together this time, though,” the Doctor added, leading the way into the forest. Hannah glanced at Sherlock, who, to her surprise, was taking surprisingly confident steps to the place where he had encountered the Angels as a child. 

Molly fell into step beside him. “Are you alright?” she asked, quietly. 

“I’m about to enter a memory I’ve been trying to delete for the best part of my life, Molly; I think “alright” would be too much of an exaggeration of my feelings right now,” Sherlock replied, though not unkindly. 

Molly simply nodded and Sherlock was grateful for her silence. It was strange, he thought, most people would have said something then like “I’m sure it’ll be fine” because people were irritating like that sometimes, but Molly seemed to sense the need to simply agree and say nothing. He wasn’t quite sure how to put his gratitude into words and he hoped that the silence would be enough. Eventually, however, his emotions got the better of him and he offered her what he hoped was a reassuring look, which produced a pretty little smile from her. 

Hannah, for her part, kept shooting glances over her shoulder just in case the Weeping Angels should sneak up on them unprepared. Each time, however, she found none. Deeper into the forest they went, into the belly of the Beast, and she couldn’t help likening it to Opheus’ descent into the Underworld. Being scared like this wasn’t fun. 

‘I swear I’ll never complain about coming up against the Daleks ever again after this,’ she thought. 

The Doctor stopped, suddenly, and Hannah walked into him. “Hannah, look where you’re going,” he scolded lightly, before pulling a palm-sized box out of his pocket and examining it.

“What’s that?” Molly asked, peering at it.

“It’s a hand-held version of what I just did in the Tardis,” the Doctor replied, switching the thing on.

“When did you make that?” asked John. 

“He’s been doing it since we left the Tardis,” Sherlock put in, and then as the Doctor glanced at him, “Well, why else would you have only one hand in your jacket pocket?”

The Doctor frowned at the screen. “I don’t get it. According to this, we should be right on top of them.”

Hannah glanced around again, and as she did, a thought struck her. “Or maybe they’re on top of us.”

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked, checking that the device as working – it was. 

Hannah closed her eyes. “What do angels do, Doctor?”

At once, everyone looked up in time to see five Weeping Angels positioned in the trees above them. “They fly,” Hannah finished, gripping her wok. 

John raised his gun. “That won’t do any good,” the Doctor said. 

“Well, what do we do?” John asked. “We can’t look at them forever!”

Molly glanced over her shoulder and then frowned. “Doctor, where’s Hannah?”

Without thinking, everyone looked around, and then, realising what they’d done, turned back just in time to come face to face with all five Angels. Molly let out a small yelp and automatically clutched Sherlock’s sleeve. He didn’t brush her away. 

“We should have brought a mirror,” the Doctor muttered.

“God, I need to blink,” Lestrade muttered.

“Don’t!” the Doctor yelped. It was very hard to converse with the others without looking at them but he didn’t want to take any chances.

“Try winking fast; it worked for Hannah,” John advised. 

“Where is Hannah?” the Doctor muttered, fumbling with the sonic screwdriver. It slipped from his fingers and he began to fumble for it whilst trying not to tear his eyes away from the Angel in front of him. 

Suddenly everything happened very fast. Sherlock smiled. The Doctor sneezed. The Weeping Angel moved; and Hannah brought the wok down upon it with a resounding clang as it froze on tiptoe, inches from the Doctor and the Doctor himself quickly dived aside to avoid it falling on top of him. 

“Pathetic!” Hannah said to the Angel as the Doctor straightened up and quickly quantum locked it. Twirling the wok in one hand, she grinned at her friends. “First Rule of Battle; Know how to take your enemy by surprise. Loki taught me that.”

“Oh, is that what you two were up to in the library the first time we visited?” the Doctor asked, raising a knowing eyebrow at her. 

Hannah flushed. “Among other things.”

Lestrade glance from one to the other and then laughed. “Seriously? You and a Greek God?”

“Norse God, Lestrade; do your research!” Sherlock sighed. 

Hannah’s blush deepened and as her friends all stared inquiringly at her, she finally exclaimed “What? He’s a good kisser!” 

“He thinks you’re his Guardian Angel, Hannah,” the Doctor provoked, lightly. 

“Oh, says the man who snogged Madame de Pompadour, Doctor!” Hannah exclaimed, finally losing it with him. “The woman who called you her “Lonely Angel!”

“You and Louis XV’s mistress?” Molly giggled. Sherlock looked impressed that she’d heard of the woman but kept his opinions to himself. 

It was the Doctor’s turn to flush as he straightened his bow tie again. “It just sort of...happened...”

“Oh, and did Liz the First just “happen” too?” Hannah asked, folding her arms with a smug grin. “At least,” she added, turning to her friends, “she thought she was the first! And her nickname is no longer-”

“Hannah!” the Doctor yelped. 

John burst out laughing. 

“And then of course there was Cleopatra, Georgiana Cavendish, Emily Bronte-”

“Hannah, you’re going the right way about being kicked out of the Tardis,” the Doctor warned. 

Hannah laughed. “Alright, I’ll shut up now, Doctor. One all?”

“One all,” the Doctor agreed. 

“Well, well, well, John,” Sherlock commented. “I’ve finally met someone who changes girlfriends more times that you do.”

“Hey!” John exclaimed. 

Molly giggled and Sherlock looked amused that he had made her laugh. 

“Emma Hamilton!” Hannah fake-coughed, and then as the Doctor turned to her “Sorry, sorry, Doctor; that one had a mind of its own, I swear!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Firstly, sorry for the long hiatus between chapters, people, but if any of you are writers, you'll know it's not an easy job! Secondly, I do think that, given that the Egyptian Gods were aliens in the Doctor Who (See Pyramids of Mars) the Doctor probably would have bumped into Thor and his Asgard buddied at some point during his travels - and in this case it's the guys from Marvel (yes, people, Hannah made out with "that" Loki!) so now it's sort of a crossover between Doctor Who, Sherlock and Thor! Anyway, hope you enjoy and also hope to update soon!


	16. "His Very Blood is Snow-Broth."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I've had a few new ideas for Hannah's character lately and one will come out in this chapter. Yes, a lot of you are going to say I've just lifted it from Frozen, but why not? This is Doctor Who, after all, anything can happen. More will be revealed in further fanfics.

“Right, well, that’s it, then, is it?” Lestrade asked, looking around the forest, once they’d all sobered up. “There’s no more of them? This is the last batch?”

“Hm,” the Doctor mused to himself, a long, drawn-out sound. 

“There’s more?” Sherlock cut in, bluntly. 

“Well...” The Doctor scratched his head. “The last time I saw these things, it wasn’t just the adult Angels. They had...well, babies.”

“How the hell does that work?” asked Lestrade as John simply gawped at the Doctor. 

“I mean cherubs,” the Doctor corrected himself, waving a hand in irritation. 

“Oh, great,” Hannah sighed. “Those things were creepy enough in Fantasia!”

“Trust you to come up with the Disney reference, Hannah,” the Doctor replied with a small smile, causing Hannah to respond with a grin that said ‘What are you going to do, eh?’ “I mean,” he added, snapping back to the matter at hand with a deft pivot to address Sherlock, “they might have all died off, being easier to starve of time energy than the adults but then again-”

He broke off as a tiny, high pitched giggle emitted from somewhere nearby, causing them all to look around for the source. 

“The phrase “Wishful Thinking” springs to mind, Doctor,” John muttered. 

The Doctor nodded. Hannah glanced at him, her grip on the wok in her hand tightening. “Doctor..?”

“Yes, Hannah?” the Doctor replied, pivoting to her. 

She took a deep breath. “If...if there was a way of...confining the Angels to a small space, would that stop them from being able to move?”

“Putting them in a confined space wouldn’t work,” the Doctor replied. “It would mean then that no one was looking at them and they’d easily escape. They’re stone, after all.”

“No, I don’t mean a box or something.” Hannah decided to use the phrase she had been hoping to avoid using after all. “I mean...like freezing or petrifying them. Say if it snowed right now...or we had some kind of freezing device to use on them...would it work?”

The Doctor considered for a moment. “It might,” he said, finally. “I can’t say for certain, but it would be worth trying...if we had something like that.”

Hannah noticed that Sherlock was looking at her intensely, studying her, and she quickly looked away, thankful for the distraction of another cherub giggle. The Doctor turned around just to make sure that there were no Angels creeping up on them, and thankfully, there weren’t, before turning about again. “If only I could remember what I’d done with that cryogenic freezer kit after Romana and I left Skaro that time,” he muttered to himself. 

Molly bit her lip. “Well, shouldn’t we get rid of these Angels before we go hunting for cherubs?”

“Or before they come hunting for us,” Sherlock agreed, with a solemn nod. 

“Yes, yes,” the Doctor agreed. “We should.”

Seeing that he had his doubts that the cherubs wouldn’t come creeping up on them unawares, Hannah took a brave step forwards. “Doctor, do you want me to try and get the cherubs? I can at least quantum lock them until you’ve sorted these Angels out.”

“Ah...” The Doctor scratched his head and then nodded. “Alright, Hannah, but be careful.” The last two words were said with emphasis. 

“When am I never?” Hannah asked, innocently. 

“Lestrade, go with her,” the Doctor added as Hannah set off, looking all around her in case a cherub suddenly popped up out of the foliage. Lestrade was about to argue, but a sudden look from Sherlock silenced him, so he nodded, deciding to trust the Doctor, and hurried after Hannah. “Right!” the Doctor added, clapping his hands together. “Sherlock, give me a hand! You two,” he pointed at John and Molly, “keep an eye on these things, and watch your backs!”

“Maybe if we stood back to back,” Molly wondered. 

“That’s the spirit!” Patting her shoulder, the Doctor turned and sprinted in the direction of the Tardis. “Come on, Sherlock!”

With a sweep of his coat, Sherlock obeyed. Though he would never admit it in a million years, a small part of him was actually beginning to like the Doctor; though perhaps only in the way he liked Mycroft. Still, he followed the Doctor into the Tardis. “This is just one long party to you, isn’t it?” he asked, watching the Doctor pull out the various pieces of “junk” they needed to send the Angels back into the Void. 

“Hardly,” the Doctor replied, tossing a strange device that looked something like a cross between a whisk and a television aerial to one side as he rooted for what he needed. “The fate of the entire Earth is at stake, not to be taken lightly, unless I get rid of these things.”

“But you do it every day,” Sherlock pointed out.

“Most days,” the Doctor agreed. 

“Why?”

The Doctor stopped what he was doing and looked up at him. “Sorry?”

“Why do you do it?”

“Er...” The Doctor thought for a moment. “Well, why do you solve mysteries with your best friend? Because it has its thrills? Because you love doing it? Because you know it’s the right thing because it helps people? All of the above?” Sherlock considered and then nodded. The Doctor nodded too. “And because if you don’t do it, no one else will, am I right?” Sherlock nodded again. The Doctor turned back to what he was doing but continued along his train of thought. “Sherlock, I’m going to tell you a secret. Not many people know this, but my race, the Time Lords, were once a great and powerful people, who could see everything that happened, or was meant to happen, in the universe. They fought for justice and freedom. When a planet became enslaved by Daleks, or was in trouble, we’d interfere, even if we said it was our policy not to, when it was necessary. No other race did that. It was our job. Well, no, not our job; it was just something we did, always had done.”

“And they died out?” Sherlock guessed. The Doctor frowned at him, questioningly, and, with a smile, Sherlock elaborated. “You spoke of them in the past tense and your voice gave the distinct impression of solitude and regret.”

“I’m the last of them now.”

“I guessed as much.”

“There was a War. The Time War. The Time Lords and the Daleks both fighting for their beliefs. At the end there was only one survivor, out of two entire races. Me.”

“And you can’t change that,” Sherlock went on for him, leaning over the console to stare into the Time Path Indicator. “Not even in a time and space machine, otherwise you would have by now.”

“The Time War is Locked,” the Doctor replied. “Not even the most powerful Time Lord in the world could change it. It was meant to happen.” He paused, setting the length of copper wire on the console. “I suppose the human race has always, almost, in a way, felt like another family to me. Earth could be another Galifrey. And as I say, if I don’t get rid of the aliens when they invade, no one will.” He glanced up at Sherlock, who was nodding, thoughtfully, storing it all inside his Mind Palace for future reference. Something told him that he would see the Doctor again someday and all this information could be useful. Already he was creating a Doctor Room inside there, filing Galifrey and Daleks and everything else he had been told about in their respective places. “While we’re talking,” the Doctor went on, casually, as if asking about the weather, as he picked up one of the feeler clamps, “do you want to talk about what happened the day we first met?” 

Sherlock glanced at him, uneasily. “You want to know why I didn’t want to talk about it earlier, you mean?”

The Doctor shrugged, pretending he didn’t care either way. “You can’t deny any of this is real now, Sherlock. The world is full of things like this; it’s just that sometimes people close their eyes to it all, blot it out, try to pretend it didn’t exist...”

Sherlock closed his eyes for a moment, considering the pros and cons of confiding in the Doctor. Finding more pros than cons, however, he took a deep breath. “Doctor, I’m about to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else. What I saw that night terrified me. It was just so...unexplainable. I kept looking for it to make sense and it didn’t. And it scared me half to death.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being scared, Sherlock,” the Doctor replied, lightly. “Even I get scared from time to time.”

“You?” Sherlock scoffed. “Scared of what?”

“All sorts of things. Horse riding; I went horse riding once back in my younger years, and it terrified me. Vampires, let’s see, werewolves, um, living scarecrows, actual dinosaurs, The Loch Ness Monster – yes,” he added to the look of surprise on Sherlock’s face, “it existed – um, Slitheen, Autons, Dalek Mutants, Cybershades – don’t tell Hannah, but I’m actually the biggest coward in the history of the universe.” Sherlock laughed, and the Doctor joined him. “The universe is scary, Sherlock,” he said, finally, in a reasonable tone, “but if you weren’t scared, then you wouldn’t be human.”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock muttered. “There are those who think I’m not human anyway.”

“Hm,” John muttered to Molly as he stood with her behind him, back to back, his eyes on all five of the Angels. “No shouting, and I can’t hear the Tardis being torn apart; they must finally be getting along.” 

Molly giggled. “At last.”

Hannah, meanwhile, found herself wishing that the Doctor hadn’t sent Lestrade after her. Not that there was anything wrong with the man, and whilst she often insisted to the Doctor that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, this wasn’t the reason she had wished to be alone either. All she could hope was that Lestrade wouldn’t see, somehow, what she was about to do. 

“Funny,” Lestrade said, presently. 

“What is?” Hannah asked, turning to face him. 

“We haven’t heard those things giggling in a while,” Lestrade pointed out.

“No,” Hannah mused. “And I’m not entirely sure if that’s good or bad.”

Even as she said it, she saw Lestrade’s eyes widen and, glancing over her shoulder, she saw what he had spotted. Three small cherub Angels were gathered at the foot of a tree, and poised ready to attack, with fangs and claws. 

“I take it back,” Hannah muttered, gripping her wok. “Fantasia isn’t that creepy after all.”

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she realised that there was another very close to their ankles. Quickly she swept the wok behind her, delivering a backhand to the cherub and sending it spinning through the air. It hit the nearest tree and shattered into chunks of limbs and body. 

“Good shot!” Lestrade exclaimed as Hannah turned to admire her handiwork, and then, realising she had taken her eyes off the others, turned and lashed out without thinking. The cherubs had advanced within a few inches of them both, but now Lestrade stared at the sudden burst of ice that had coated them like an extra skin, quite literally freezing them where they stood.

“How the hell-?”

Hannah whipped around to face him, panic filling her despite her best efforts to stay calm. “Lestrade,” she began, worriedly, “I can explain...if you’d just give me a moment to think of something!”

“Wha-? How did you-? I-!”

There was rotten branch a few inches above his head. An expansion of ice would break that. 

As Lestrade gripped his hair and tried to think of a complete sentence, he was suddenly cut short as the branch fell, courtesy of a quick moment’s concentration on Hannah’s behalf, cracked him across the back of the head and knocked him for six. As he crumpled to the ground, Hannah shot a frightened glance at the broken cherub to make sure that it hadn’t moved – it hadn’t – and then on her frozen ones, which also hadn’t moved, before hurrying up to him, hoping that it had just knocked that last memory out of his brain and not done any further lasting damage. 

“Sorry,” she moaned, before filling her lungs with air, ready to shout out for the Doctor again. 

“There!” The Doctor grinned in triumph as he removed his goggles. “Hopefully that’s the last we’ll see of them for a while! I hope it’s the last you lot see of them, anyway.”

“They don’t exactly put up much of a fight, do they?” John asked, pulling off his own goggles. 

The Doctor was about to reply when Hannah’s shout cut through the air towards them and he paled, visibly. “Hold on, Hannah!” he shouted back before ploughing through the trees like a crazed cheetah. Sherlock, John and Molly followed after him, wondering just what could have caused Hannah to shout out like that. By the time they arrived, she had her story ready, as she crouched over Lestrade to meet their gazes. 

“He got a bad knock on the head,” she said, hoping that was enough to convince them should Lestrade still retain that part of his memory and start babbling about her doing magic or something. 

John crouched down over Lestrade, rolling him onto his front and examining the lump on his skull. “He’ll be alright,” he reported as the Doctor frowned at the three frozen cherubs. 

“Odd,” he murmured, “We haven’t had a snowstorm.” He spun around to face Hannah and grasped her shoulders. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Hannah hated lying to the Doctor but she knew she had to. Meeting his eyes she went on “We found them like that, all except that broken one; I took that one out with the wok. And then that branch came down for some reason.”

“Strange,” Sherlock mused, examining the broken end of the branch. 

“What have you found?” asked Molly.

“The residues of ice crystals,” Sherlock replied, with a frown. “Suggesting this branch was broken by an expansion of ice that seems to have melted very quickly.”

“How is that possible?” Molly asked. “In the time between Hannah shouting out and us getting here?”

“And you saw nothing?” Sherlock directed at Hannah. 

“Nothing but the cherubs,” Hannah insisted, glancing back at the Doctor. “It couldn’t be a rip in time or something, could it, Doctor? Like when the walls of time are made weak by something?”

“Some kind of leak from another world, maybe,” the Doctor mused, although Hannah could tell that he wasn’t one hundred percent convinced. Before she could suggest anything else, however, Lestrade groaned and sat up, rubbing his head. “Oh-oh! What hit me?”

“You alright?” John asked, holding up his hand. “How many fingers can you see?”

“Three,” Lestrade answered, correctly. “What happened? One minute it was me and Hannah and those cherub things, and the next...” He shook his head. “It’s all a blank.”

Hannah managed not to let her relief show on her face as she answered “I’m just as confused as you are.”

“Let’s get back to the Tardis,” the Doctor muttered, leading the way. “These cherubs aren’t going anywhere just yet. I can’t think straight out here. Too much...green!” he finished, dismissively. 

“Funny,” Lestrade said as John helped him to his feet. “You were talking about ice a minute ago, Hannah, and now this.” He waved his hand at the frozen cherubs. “Odd coincidence.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Sherlock muttered in Hannah’s ear as they made their way back to the Tardis. Hannah stiffened but said nothing. “Come on, Hannah,” Sherlock went on in a low voice so the others couldn’t hear him. “You did see what it was that froze those things, didn’t you?”

Hannah took a deep breath. “Has anyone ever told you to shut up, Sherlock?”

“Frequently.”

“Then you’d do well to do so now.”

Sherlock smirked and looked her up and down. “You’re quite a puzzle, aren’t you, Hannah Waters?”

Hannah shrugged. “That’s for me to know and you to solve, Sherlock Holmes.”


	17. "A Cure for Worrying."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

It was at times like this that Hannah thanked whatever Gods, or rather aliens, that were out there that she had taken a university course, and passed with a First, in Performing Arts, because she was just about able to keep herself from shaking and keep up the pretence that she was perfectly fine. Of course she wasn’t, for although the blow to the head had shaken the memory of the ice power she possessed from Lestrade’s mind for now, a part of her worried that he would suddenly remember what he had seen. 

She shot a glance at her companions. Lestrade was rubbing the lump on his skull but otherwise seemed none the worse for wear. John looked as if he were trying to decide whether or not this sudden appearance of ice crystals was something to worry about. Molly was watching the Doctor, who was running his hands through his hair, muttering to himself about “Rip...is it a rip in time? Or is it something else?” Her heart suddenly clenched as she realised that he was slowly beginning to put the pieces together. After all, this wasn’t the first time she had been forced to use her abilities to get them out of some kind of scrape, although of course the Doctor had never witnessed her doing so. She had had to be subtle about it, making it look like she had had nothing to do with that strange ice bridge that suddenly appeared over the Chasm of Doom, or that Snowman that had come to life on the Frozen Plains of Dingdongdal (try saying that whilst tipsy!) that had helped them to defeat a rogue Cyberman with a glitch. 

But if the Doctor began to notice that things like this happened a lot whilst she was around...

She did hate hiding it from him. After all, he was her best friend, and he had opened up to her about so many things, things that he trusted her to understand and never reveal to anyone else. By rights she ought to do the same for him, but she just couldn’t bring herself to. 

Only Sherlock didn’t look worried or pained, merely thoughtful, and that was somewhat disturbing. Hannah suppressed a shudder at the thought that he might somehow figure out what had happened, what she had done, and what she was. After all, though Sherlock was new to the idea of aliens and time travel and such things, he wasn’t by any means unintelligent, as she was rapidly finding out. 

“This,” the Doctor announced suddenly, slamming both hands down onto the console with a loud thud that caused even Sherlock to flinch, “is very annoying!”

He was wearing one of his grim expressions on his face, Hannah noted. 

“What, you’ve thought of something?” John asked.

“No, that’s what’s very annoying,” the Doctor explained. 

Lestrade winced, slightly. “Sorry...can I...I know you’re going to make jokes but can I get some ice for this or something?” He gestured to the lump on his head. 

Feeling another pang of guilt for having been the cause of his injury, Hannah said, in what she hoped was a bright tone “I think we’ve got some frozen peas in the kitchen.”

“That’ll work,” Lestrade replied. 

Hannah slipped out of the room, grateful just to get away from the tension that had settled over the console room all of a sudden. 

“Food!” the Doctor exclaimed suddenly, pivoting around in the direction she had disappeared. “Of course! Can’t think when I’m hungry! Is anyone else hungry? Hannah!”

He was talking very fast, very excitably again, so Sherlock noted that he was probably alright again. “Don’t eat when I’m working. Digestion slows my concentration.”

“We’re calling this a job now, are we?” John asked him. 

“Well, what else would you call saving the world from a bunch of Weeping Aliens?” Sherlock responded.

“A hobby,” was the Doctor’s reply as Hannah reappeared in the doorway. “And it’s Weeping Angels. Hannah, have we got any fish fingers?”

Hannah grinned. “Yep, and plenty of custard before you ask. But I’ll bet these guys are looking for something a bit more normal. How about some sandwiches?” Then, as the Doctor looked slightly put down, like a puppy in trouble, she added, with a sigh to show she was humouring his odd food cravings, “I’ll put fish fingers and custard in yours.”

The Doctor grinned at her like a child at Christmas. “And stick the kettle on while you’re at it.”

“That’s the only reason you have me, isn’t it?” Hannah muttered, but without malice, as she disappeared again. Once she was gone, the Doctor began to fiddle with something on the console and the others all leaned over to watch him. 

“What are you doing?” Molly asked. 

“Bringing up the camera for the kitchen, and the two way communicator,” the Doctor replied, in a tone that indicated that he was once again being very clever. “Don’t want Hannah feeling left out, do we?” 

He flicked a switch and then yelped happily into a small microphone speaker in a small box beside it “Hannah, can you hear me?”

In the kitchen, Hannah leapt almost through the Tardis ceiling as the Doctor’s excitable tones came booming out of nowhere at a tremendous volume, and the others saw her do so on the screen. “Whoa!” she exclaimed. “Bloody hell, Doctor!”

“Oh, sorry,” the Doctor frowned. “Was that too loud?”

“Yes!” Hannah replied in an exasperated tone. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” the Doctor apologised as Hannah rubbed her ears, and he fiddled with a dial before asking “Is that better?”

“Yes,” Hannah answered, before crossing to the freezer to pull out some frozen peas. 

“Right,” the Doctor muttered, before addressing the others in a brisk, professional manner. “Now, that theory of Hannah’s about a rip in time and space could be right, because this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to us, is it, Hannah?”

“No,” Hannah agreed, wishing that the Doctor would just let the whole thing go. “There was that time on Cetus Alpha...and then again on the Frozen Plains...”

“And it isn’t the first time something recurring has happened to me, either,” the Doctor added to the others. “Before now I’ve found myself followed around time and space by words, or names, or some other signal or sign of something that seems meaningless but has always turned out to lead to danger.”

“Such as?” Lestrade asked. 

“Bad Wolf!”

The Doctor jumped but when Hannah added “The name of a space station that was taken over by the Daleks,” the Doctor realised that she wasn’t actually using the code word to signal that it was the end of the world but making reference to it. 

He nodded. “Yes, that incident almost spelled the end of the world as we know it.”

“So...what? This sudden appearance of ice could be some kind of signal like that? Like a trail?” John piped up. 

“Could be,” the Doctor mused. “But is it a warning? A cry for help? Or a threat? I did once have an encounter with some living snow, you know.”

The others simply stared at him when he said that. Before the Doctor could explain, however, he was interrupted as Hannah came back into the room and held out the packet of frozen peas wrapped in a scarf, which Lestrade took with a grateful “Oh, cheers.”

“Well, what was happening the last-?” Sherlock began, but then he was likewise interrupted by a sudden creepy giggle somewhere nearby that made everyone freeze with terror. 

“That was a Cherub,” Hannah said, when she could finally speak.

“But...we sent them all back...” John frowned.

“Maybe we missed one?” Molly guessed, wearily. 

The soft, thudding footsteps coming from outside the Tardis door had the Doctor sprinting to it in an instant. “You are NOT eating this ship!” he exclaimed, wrenching the door open and glaring angrily at the little Cherub, which froze with a cocky look on its face and its arms outstretched towards the Tardis. Watching it closely, the Doctor slipped through the door, circled around it and fumbled for the sonic screwdriver. Hannah sprinted to the doorway to take over the role of watcher as the Doctor patted his pockets and then looked up at her with a worried expression on his face. “Sonic! Can’t find!”

Now it was Hannah’s turn to look worried. Before she could say anything, though, Molly cried “It’s here!”

Hannah swivelled around and held out her hand as Molly gallantly tossed it with a perfect hand towards her. Hannah caught it in relief and grinned, gratefully, at her.

“Nicely done,” Sherlock commented, to Molly, who looked both pleased and bashful as she ducked her head. 

“Well done, Molly!” the Doctor called, and then yelped. Hannah glanced at him and then let out a startled gasp. The Cherub, horrible sneaky little thing that it was, had taken advantage of their momentary distraction and, instead of trying to feed off the Tardis, had decided that the Doctor, a Time Lord of nine hundred or so years, give or take, was a much better option and had seized him around the ankle. The Doctor’s look had frozen it, but now, if either he or Hannah blinked or looked away from it, it would have him in its clutches and sent back through time. 

“Hannah,” the Doctor said, levelly, holding out a hand. “Toss me the sonic.”

Hannah, her eyes on the Cherub, shook her head. “If I do, we’ll both take our eyes off the thing.” She moved half a step forwards but the Doctor held out a hand to stop her. “No! Hannah, if you blink in mid-move it’ll get you, and it’s better if it gets me, so stay still!”

“Doctor-!”

“Hannah!” The Doctor looked at her, and she could feel his eyes on her even though hers were locked firmly on the Cherub. “Trust me.”

Hannah sighed. Even though it was hard sometimes, she did trust the Doctor. Inside the Tardis, the others suddenly spurned themselves into action and began to move towards the door, but it was a little late as Hannah tossed the screwdriver into the air. Her eyes followed its spinning, and as the Doctor caught it, he blinked...and was suddenly gone, along with the Cherub. 

“Doctor!” Hannah shouted, falling on the place where he had just been standing, feeling about for some residue, some trace of where he might have been taken to now. But it was no good. Of course it wasn’t. These things had the power to send a person hundreds of years back into the past. She felt her heart lurch. The Doctor was gone, and here she was, admittedly back in her own time and not too far from home, with the Tardis and a group of people whom she had only met recently, and no clue what to do. Any other time this might not be such a bad situation to be in, after all she was close to home, but she was nowhere near ready to stop travelling with the Doctor just yet. 

Sherlock, John, Lestrade and Molly came racing out behind her and she turned to them, worriedly. “He’s...gone...”

She couldn’t imagine not seeing the Doctor ever again. Even if she ever did stop travelling with him, she had assumed that he would at least keep on popping in and out of her life at random in the Tardis, possibly dragging her into trouble along the way. But now...now it felt like all hope was lost...and her abilities couldn’t help her out of this one. 

“But...” John couldn’t think of anything to say.

There was a moment’s quiet, and then Sherlock said, in his usual blunt and tactless way “Hannah, stop being such an idiot.”

Hannah turned to him, rather indignantly, whilst the others stared at him, although his tone shouldn’t have surprised them. Vigorously, Hannah jumped to her feet. “Excuse me?”

Lestrade stifled a laugh. Hannah was quite a bit shorter than Sherlock and the image of someone her size getting angry at someone of his stature was somewhat comical. 

“You have a Time Machine!” Sherlock said in a voice that indicated they were all being rather slow. “You can rescue him from whatever Godforsaken place that thing took him!”

Hannah slapped a hand to her forehead. “Sherlock Holmes, you’re brilliant!”

Sherlock grinned at her. “I know.”

“Oh!” Lestrade groaned as Hannah shot past him into the Tardis. “Great! Now you’ve encouraged him!”

“Be grateful you don’t live with him,” John muttered.

“Believe me, I am!” Lestrade replied, prompting a giggle from Molly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sherlock asked.

“Are you guys coming?” Hannah called from inside the Tardis. “The universe needs a Doctor and we’ve got to get him!”


	18. "Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

‘What,’ Hannah couldn’t help thinking, as she often did in such situations, ‘would Rose do if she were here?’

Of all the Doctor’s past companions, or rather the ones that she had met – Sarah Jane Smith, Wilfred Mott, Captain Jack Harkness, Mickey and Martha Smith, Rose Tyler and River Song – the latter of whom she certainly had NOT taken to – she had long ago decided that she liked Rose the best. Rose was someone who never lost her head in a crisis, or if she did, she didn’t show it and was always brave and resolute, not in a show-off way but more in a good old fashion British-Keep-Calm-And-Carry-On-Stiff-Upper-Lip way, which Hannah admired, and she felt proud to have met her. After all, the Doctor spoke very highly of her indeed. 

So it was never “What would God do?” or even “What would my Parent/Hero/Favourite Fictional Character do?” in Hannah’s mind, but always “What would Rose do?”

‘She would keep calm knowing that there’s a way to find the Doctor again,’ the voice in her head replied readily. ‘Only...would she know which mechanism on this flaming console – sorry, Old Girl – is the tracker?’

She groaned. “What is he doing to me?”

“What?”

Remembering that she wasn’t alone on this occasion, Hannah glanced at her new friends and shot them what she hoped was a reassuring smile, the kind of smile that said “I know what it is I’m doing, trust me.” The kind of smile the Doctor usually gave, and more often than not, the one she DIDN’T trust. 

“I think he’s been playing around with the controls again,” she explained, and then, remembering the term the Doctor always preferred, added “Re-decorating. I can never find anything when he does that.”

“Well, that was how he found the Weeping Angels here,” Molly remembered, pointing to the small screen. “Maybe you can find him that way..?”

She trailed off, noticing Sherlock was looking at her in surprise, as if startled that she had observed such a thing, and remembered it. Hannah quickly put her at ease, however, by exclaiming “Of course! Now if I remember rightly, it was that switch there!” and leaping over to the spot to test her theory. She grinned at Molly. “Well done, Molls.”

Molly acknowledged the use of a nickname with a friendly smile. Sherlock looked impressed, which didn’t happen very often. “But you need DNA,” Lestrade remembered. 

“Yes,” Hannah replied, coolly, “and we have some. The Doctor’s blood type is saved to the Tardis Data Memory Banks from a sample he filed in the Archive Storage under B!”

“Of course,” Sherlock smiled, in a tone that indicated he was humouring her. “Should have guessed.”

Hannah, who had dropped to her knees to pull open the appropriate hatch, looked up at him. “Do I detect a note of sarcasm-Oh, my God! I just turned into the Doctor!”

Molly giggled uncertainly as John and Lestrade both laughed and Sherlock simply smirked. “It’s not funny,” Hannah insisted, retrieving the large trunk marked with a B, or rather what the Doctor had told her was a B – it was very hard to tell with Galifreyan writing. “I sounded like him in his younger years then; back when he was white haired and grumpy.”

Lestrade abruptly stopped laughing. “White haired in his younger years?”

“Yep,” Hannah agreed, rooting through the box. Molly crouched down beside her as she began pulling various things out of it, beginning with an empty plastic bottle. “Bubble Shock Bottle.”

“Bubble Shock? Jeez, I remember that stuff!” Lestrade shuddered. “Tasted horrible!”

“Bacteria from Spiradon. Why did he even keep this? Horrible stuff. Berserker Pendant; do NOT put on or we’ll all be in trouble. Balhoonian Rocket Spanner. Bazoolium; hot. No rain today. Biodamper. Black Scrolls of Rassilon. Ah!” Hannah finally pulled out the small bottle, which looked something like a test tube with a black cork stopper, and her friends couldn’t help feeling disappointed. After all, in their separate professions, they were no strangers to the sight of blood, but they had expected something a little more exciting from the blood of a Time Lord instead of the thick red liquid that looked exactly like that which they dealt with every day anyway. At any rate, it was John who voiced what they were all thinking. 

“That’s it?”

“Well, what were you expecting?” Hannah asked. “That it’d be green or something?”

Without waiting for an answer, she got to her feet and poured a tiny drop into the small opening as they had seen the Doctor do with the Weeping Angel dust and her companions leaned over her as she began to fiddle with the controls. Presently she stopped fiddling and stared at the screen, as did her friends. 

“How is that possible?” Even Sherlock, the knowledgeable detective who was usually good at explaining things and who was just beginning to open up his mind to the notion of the impossible, was baffled by what the screen showed them. 

“One mile away, Present Day, Earth?” Lestrade repeated, reading from the screen. 

And then Hannah clapped a hand to her forehead, wondering how she could have been so stupid. “Oh that man!”

The others glanced at her in alarm as she began to laugh, shoulders shaking with vigour as she snapped off the screen and then turned to them. “Don’t you guys get it? Time Lord! Of course he’s not going to age to death like all those others the Angels sent back in time! Oh, God!” Running her hands through her fringe, not caring at all that she was ruffling her usually neat style, she let out another short laugh and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot!”

Molly blinked at her. “You mean we’re not going to get a letter or something saying that he’s not coming back?”

“No!” Hannah couldn’t help laughing again at how startled they all looked. “He’s just lived through whatever time period the Cherub sent him back to and he’s come back at this point in time because he knows we’re still here!”

“What are you saying?” Lestrade asked, incredulously. “That he can’t die?”

“Of course I can!” the Doctor replied, tersely, walking through the Tardis doors to bemusement of Hannah and to the bewilderment of the others. “I’m a Time Lord, not a Vampire, Lestrade! Keep up!”

Grinning, Hannah ran over and gave him a firm hug, and then pulled away from him sharply. “No, wait, get off! I’m cross with you for scaring me like that!”

“Try looking at it from my point of view,” the Doctor retorted. “I just went through the whole of the nineties and two thousands up to this point with no money, no Tardis and no fish fingers and custard! It was very traumatic!”

“The nineties?”

“Yes, thankfully that little Cherub only had enough power to pull me back a couple of decades! You know, I’d forgotten how terrible nineties fashions were!”

“You’re one to talk,” Hannah commented.

The Doctor merely scowled at her and straightened his bow tie as if to make a point.

“You don’t look to have aged,” Sherlock pointed out.

“Well, that’s nice of you to say so, Sherlock, but I did find a grey hair three days ago,” the Doctor replied, hopping up to the console with the energy of a schoolboy. 

“Hang on,” John said. “What happened to the Cherub? Is it still out there?”

“No, no, I managed to send it back with the help of some nineties technology, and a few instructions from UNIT.” The Doctor glanced at Hannah. “Got to see the Brig one last time; that was nice.”

Hannah smiled, sympathetically. Though she had never personally met Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, she had met his daughter Kate at UNIT and she knew that the loss of his old friend had hit the Doctor hard when he had learned about it. 

“So...that’s it, then?” Lestrade asked, finally. “I mean...that was the last one, right?”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor replied, brightly. “That was the last Cherub, for now. Although I wouldn’t hold out too much hope that they’re gone for good. A lot of the time I tend to meet enemies who keep on coming back, so keep your eyes and ears open.”

“But I mean it’s over for now,” Lestrade insisted, stepping up to the console. “We can go home?”

“Hm?” The Doctor glanced up from whatever it was that he was doing. Hannah wondered all this pretence that he was doing something was simply a ruse to cover up the fact that he was simply re-familiarising himself with the Tardis once again. After all, it couldn’t have been easy being away from her for so long, and worrying what hardships she may or may not have gone through in Hannah’s hands. “Oh. Yes. By all means. Go home. Go back to your normal everyday lives, running around London, solving mysteries, healing sick people, arresting criminals. Adventure’s over.”

His tone sounded flat, as if he wasn’t really making an effort to conceal the disappointment he was feeling inside that now the adventure was, seemingly, over his new-found friends didn’t want to stay adventuring, and even someone like Lestrade couldn’t mistake that he wasn’t saying what he felt at that point. Hannah glanced at him, at his passive expression, and knew what she had to do. 

“Unless...”

Everyone glanced at her, the Doctor looking surprised at her inviting tone.

“Unless you’d be kind enough to give the Doctor the opportunity to show off like he clearly wants to and allow him to take us somewhere beyond tired old Earth, some fantastical new planet in the furthest reaches of time and space, and still be back in time for tea?” Hannah finished, giving the Doctor a slightly smug look. 

The Doctor’s frown immediately turned upside down in a great grin, like a Cheshire Cat, and then he quickly wiped it away and added in a dismissive tone “Yes, well, we can do that if anyone wants to.”

“We can do that?” Molly asked, shyly.

“Yes!” The Doctor smiled, comfortingly and kindly, at her. “I can take you anywhere, anywhen, in this thing. Ooh, I like that word, Hannah, anywhen! That is a good word! Make a note of it!”

“Well...” John considered. “I can believe this thing can take us around London and maybe even travel in time, but I think I’d like to see it travel through space for myself.”

“Yes, I’m with you there,” Lestrade agreed. “Providing we do get back in time for tea, otherwise my wife will kill me.”

“No, she won’t,” Sherlock chipped in. “She’ll be too busy-”

“Shut up, Sherlock!” John interrupted quickly as Lestrade frowned. 

“That’s settled then!” The Doctor clapped his hands together and then yanked at one of the Tardis levers. With its usual grinding of gears, the Tardis de-materialised. “Hannah!” he added, promptly. “You never did make that cup of tea, did you?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Did you order Rose about like this?” she muttered, making her way into the kitchen. 

“I’ll be right back!” the Doctor said to the others. “Don’t touch anything!” He ran after Hannah and caught up with her in the corridor. “Hannah, why did you ask them to come along for a trip?”

“Because I knew what you were thinking.”

“Which was?”

“That the fact that you and Sherlock have been pulled together twice in your lives, with both incidents relating to the Weeping Angels, can’t just be a coincidence.”

“You know me so well, Hannah,” the Doctor replied. “And you’re absolutely right. There is a reason for it. And I’m going to find it.”


	19. "When icicles hang by the wall."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

The strange grinding of gears was fast becoming somewhat soothing to those who had only just started travelling in the Tardis. It was easy to get used to, Sherlock decided, filing away small details that the Doctor readily relayed to him about the ship and the Weeping Angels, and all sorts of other things about the universe which could come in handy for future reference, away in his Mind Palace. The Doctor was on form once more, never able to resist an opportunity to show off his knowledge of the universe to someone whose own knowledge of such things was somewhat limited, Hannah knew. That was one of the reasons he liked taking along humans as travelling companions; the other reason, of course, being that he just happened to love humans so much. 

“And they do make a brilliant cup of tea,” he had once informed her, grinning at her over the top of his elaborately patterned teacup. Hannah knew just how he liked it by now; milk, one sugar and a pinch of salt. 

The others had to agree with that statement, in their minds, that Hannah did make good tea; and after all the running around they had been doing lately, it was just what they all needed to fortify them. It was strange, John reflected to himself, how quickly you could get used to things like this. It was like when he had first started living with Sherlock; back then the notion of running around London, solving complex murder mysteries with a known high-functioning sociopath, had been something he had never thought he would do in a million years and yet now it was as natuatl as tying his shoelaces. And this was the same; listening to this madly eccentric, excitable man babble on about aliens and science and the like had all been strange at first, but now he found he was getting used to it.

“So, this is just what you two do, then?” he asked Hannah as the others sat rapt listening to the Doctor’s description of the Nebula Constabula, with vivid hand gestures and facial expressions thrown in. “Travel around in time and space, defeating aliens?”

“Pretty much,” Hannah replied. “I mean, it’s not always like this; sometimes it can get really scary.”

“You don’t call all that’s happened today scary?”

“Oh, no; today was fairly tame compared with what we go through most days.” Hannah paused, thoughtfully. “I mean, obviously I can’t keep on...travelling...like this...one day I’m going to have to stop, but for now...I mean someone’s got to keep an eye on him,” she added, gesturing to the Doctor.

“I heard that!” the Doctor said, pivoting around to face her. Before Hannah could respond, however, the Tardis began to materialise with her usual scraping sound and everyone looked over at the console as the Doctor bounced up to it and checked the scanner.

“Where are we?” Sherlock asked, presently, seeing the Doctor’s face light up with excitement.

“Svartos,” the Doctor announced, twirling about in a Ta-dah motion, “a planet tidally-locked so half of it’s permanently in the sun and half of it’s permanently in the dark! And we’ve arrived just in time for winter!”

“Not more ice!” Lestrade groaned.

Molly was already at the door, and she hesitated, turning questioning eyes to the Doctor, like a child asking for permission to do something. The Doctor returned with a gentle smile and a nod and Molly pulled the door open. Hannah found herself groaning inwardly that the Doctor had brought them somewhere with ice and snow, but she knew that complaining would only raise questions, so she kept quiet. 

“Oh..!” Molly breathed, staring out at the planet landscape. At first glance, it looked like Earth in winter, but then Earth didn’t have a frozen ocean, all solid waves, curving towards the sky, or a moon that was violet in colour, or twinkling stars every colour of the rainbow looking down on them. Even the snow didn’t look like ordinary Earth snow, it glittered with faint blue crystals, like tiny diamonds. 

The Doctor was grinning from ear to ear as the others joined Molly at the door, looking more than a little pleased with himself. “Now do you believe, John?” he asked.

John nodded, speechless. Molly shivered and stepped back inside the Tardis. “It’s freezing,” she said. 

“Well observed,” Sherlock muttered, and then received a rather hard elbow in the ribs from John. 

“Well, you can borrow a coat,” Hannah said, turning to the Doctor. “Can’t she, Doctor?”

“Of course,” the Doctor agreed. “We’ve got a wardrobe full of them.”

“Come on,” Hannah smiled to Molly before leading the way through to the back of the Tardis. 

“I think I’ll grab one too, if it’s alright,” John said, his breath puffing into clouds as he pulled his head back inside the Tardis and followed Hannah and Molly.

“I’m right behind you,” Lestrade agreed, running after him. 

The Doctor and Sherlock found themselves alone once more, but this time they were content with silence. The Doctor came and stood beside Sherlock and they just watched the whirl of snowflakes as they twisted down from the unblinking sky. 

“Did you choose this place on purpose?” Sherlock finally asked. 

The Doctor didn’t ask why Sherlock would think such a thing. “I need ice samples,” he mused, looking all around the landscape. “If there is something following us that leaves a trail of ice in its wake, I’d like to know where it’s coming from. And more importantly why it’s following us.”

Sherlock turned to him. “I think Hannah knows.”

“What makes you say that?” the Doctor asked in surprise. 

“Because she was very quick to explain what happened, but she was also calm about it,” Sherlock replied. “People only ever react like that if they know the reason for something but they’re not saying.”

The Doctor furrowed his brow. “Well, that’s not like Hannah. Why would she lie to me?”

“Fear. I could see it in her eyes. Whatever she did see, if anything, scared her. So much so that she didn’t want to believe it had actually happened.”

The Doctor blinked and then shook his head. “No,” he decided, firmly, “no. Not Hannah. She’d tell me if she knew. She doesn’t hide things from me, especially things like that.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Perhaps I’m wrong,” he said, although he didn’t sound like he believed that. “She does seem fairly truthful, although sometimes people lie when they think they’ve got good reason for it.”

“Ready!” Hannah’s voice interrupted whatever the Doctor’s response might have been before he had even thought it up. He and Sherlock both turned as she breezed back into the room, followed by Molly, who was wrapped in a bright blue duffle coat, which, unlike most of the clothes she usually wore, actually suited her, Sherlock noticed; John, who was wearing what looked like an old-fashioned Victorian men’s coat and Lestrade, who was clad in a dark green coat and a thick woollen scarf.

“Excellent!” the Doctor replied, clapping his hands together, and then gallantly offering Molly his arm. “Doctor Hooper, would you care to join me for a walk in the snow?”

Molly giggled, nervously. “That would be lovely, thank you, Doctor.”

“And I’m a wallflower as usual,” Hannah sighed but when Molly glanced at her she noticed that her new friend was teasing. 

“It makes a nice change,” the Doctor replied, tapping her nose condescendingly with one finger before leading Molly out into the whirling snow.

“Make sure he doesn’t do anything daft!” Hannah called after Molly. 

“Is he likely to?” Lestrade asked. 

“Yes,” Hannah and Sherlock both answered at the same time. 

John laughed, and then noticed that Hannah was the only one, besides the Doctor, not wearing a coat. “Aren’t you going to wrap up?”

“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Hannah replied, and then, as Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her, added “I’m one of those people who doesn’t feel the cold much.”

Taking her at her word, the three men followed her out of the Tardis, Lestrade remembering to pull the door shut behind him as they went, and set off through ankle-deep snow after the Doctor and Molly.

“This is amazing!” Molly gushed, her cheeks flushed with pleasure. “I mean...it’s impossible for the sea to freeze on Earth! I can’t believe I’m seeing it!”

The Doctor grinned at her. “I like you, Molly Hooper, and that’s something I never thought I’d say to a pathologist.”

Molly giggled again. “I think you’re the first person to ever actually say that to me, Doctor.”

“Oh, I think John likes you. I mean he counts you as a friend. And Lestrade.”

“Mm. Sometimes I think he might like me a bit too much.”

“Oh, he’s alright. Just a bit like his ancestor, and even he settled down with the right woman eventually. Queen Nefertiti to be precise.”

“Seriously?” Molly’s eyes widened. 

“Seriously,” the Doctor confirmed. “And I can tell you mean a great deal to Sherlock.”

“No, I don’t,” Molly sighed, sadly. “I mean...I help him...I let him see bodies when it helps him solve a mystery and sometimes I get body parts from the morgue for him to experiment on when he’s bored...but I don’t count as one of his friends.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” the Doctor replied, kindly. “He did seem pretty worried when you had the Angel in your eye. Trust me,” he added, when Molly looked doubtful. “I’m the Doctor. I know what I’m talking about.”

“Most of the time,” Hannah chipped in as she slid past him.

The Doctor turned to her. “Where did you come from?”

“Well, I think what happened was my mother and father got this urge to-” Hannah giggled as the Doctor took a playful swat at her. “I can move faster through the snow than that lot can,” she added to Molly, turning in the direction of Sherlock, John and Lestrade as they came striding up. 

Glancing towards the frozen sea, she felt a sudden pang, because the desire to let her abilities start playing around with the ice and snow was stirring and it was getting hard to quash down. She loved ice skating and that frozen ocean was so alluring...

“I say, Doctor,” Lestrade said, breaking into her thoughts, “it’s not going to get much colder than this, is it?”

“No, it shouldn’t do,” the Doctor replied, cheerfully. “Although if anyone’s feeling the cold, we can always pop over to that little cafe’ over there for something hot.” He pointed to a building a little way off that was shaped like a mushroom. 

Hannah raised her eyebrows. “Are you buying? I thought you never carried-?”

“Don’t worry, Hannah, I thought ahead this time,” the Doctor cut across her, holding up a small green device that looked something like a memory stick. “Credits,” he explained, for the benefit of the others, “and quite enough of them, certainly enough to get us something hot to eat and drink.”

“We are actually going for food on an alien planet?” John shook his head. “This is just...unreal.”

Hannah grinned. “Welcome to my life. But,” she added, as the Doctor glanced at her, “at least it isn’t boring.”

"No," Sherlock agreed, quietly, as they turned in the direction of the building. "So far this adventure's proved to be anything but."


	20. "Journeys end in lover's meeting."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are seeking new entertainment in between mysteries when a mysterious blue box appears in 221B Baker Street. Soon, they are dragged on an adventure with the mysterious Doctor and his friend Hannah...

“Cup of tea, Mr Holmes?” Mrs Hudson asked, presently. 

Mycroft assuaged a tight smile as her responded with sincere politeness “No thank you, Mrs Hudson.”

“Oh, well, I’ll stick the kettle on anyway,” she replied, bustling into the kitchen. “I imagine your brother and John will appreciate a nice cup of tea after all they’ve been doing today.”

Mycroft nodded, even though she couldn’t see him doing so. The second the Tardis had taken off he had had his informants searching through the archives at UNIT for more information on this “Doctor” and his strange blue box. All that Mycroft had known previously was that the man wasn’t human – that much was obvious to anyone who met him – and that the Queen spoke highly of him because he had not only saved her life once at Christmas, but had also saved the entire planet more times that she cared to remember. Of course, Kate Stewart hadn’t been too happy about Government Officials turning her archives upside down, but eventually Mycroft had obtained the information he needed. Now satisfied that sooner or later the Tardis would re-materialise in the living room of 221B Baker Street – after all it had been five hours since its last de-materialisation – Mycroft was content to sit in Sherlock’s favourite armchair and wait for it to do so.

Mrs Hudson, meanwhile, busied herself in the kitchen, the information that Mycroft had given her buzzing around her brain like a swarm of wasps. She still couldn’t quite get her head around it. Alien invasion was one thing, but the notion of their being a friendly alien who saved the planet Earth along with his human companion and a spaceship disguised as a London Police Box of the nineteen sixties; well! That was quite another thing altogether. Still, she reflected, from what she had seen of him, this “Doctor” – Doctor Who? Now that was the question – seemed like a very nice, polite sort of chap, if a little eccentric by nature. Hannah too, although she seemed a lot more sensible than the Doctor. 

The sudden grinding and scraping of gears caused her to jump so much she almost spilled the milk. She had, after all, only heard the sound once before, so wasn’t entirely used to it. As she hurried into the living room, Mycroft clambered slowly to his feet and together they watched in silence as the Tardis finally solidified itself in the middle of the room. The door creaked as it opened and the Doctor popped his head out. 

“Hello!” he said, cheerfully. “How’s everyone doing? Sorry about that; had to take a quick trip to a graveyard, thankfully not my own! Anyway, we’re back now, so no cause for alarm!”

“You’ve been gone for five hours,” Mycroft informed him, stiffly. 

“Ah!” The Doctor replied after a moment’s hesitation.

“Five hours?” Lestrade scrabbled past him, stumbling out of the Tardis and almost landing on the coffee table. “Jesus; my wife’s going to kill me!”

“Sorry,” the Doctor apologised as he finally stepped from the Tardis, followed by the others. Lestrade quickly shucked his borrowed coat and tossed it into Hannah’s arms with a gabble of “Thanks,” before turning to the Doctor. “Look, it was nice meeting you and everything, and it’s been a pretty amazing trip, but I really do have to go now!”

“Of course,” the Doctor replied with a smile, seizing Lestrade’s hand both of his own and giving it a hearty shake. “British Police Force, Hannah, don’t you just love it?”

“As long as I’m not the one being arrested,” Hannah joked, grinning at Lestrade.

He shot her a smile and then, with a hurried, “Bye,” to everyone else, was out of the door faster than a Cheetah Person. 

Molly smiled, shyly, as she shucked her own coat. “I’d better go too. I need to feed Toby.”

“Toby?” the Doctor repeated. 

“The cat,” Sherlock supplied as Molly opened her mouth to reply. Nodding and blushing, Molly handed her coat to Hannah. 

“Oh, look,” Hannah joked. “I’ve been promoted. Teas-Made to Coat Rack; I’m going up in the world.”Everyone laughed, apart from Mycroft, whose sense of humour was rather limited, so he merely smiled instead. Then Hannah stepped forwards and gave Molly a one-armed hug which the pathologist happily returned. “You take care now,” Hannah said to her, pulling away. “And don’t go looking anymore Weeping Angels in the eye.”

“I’ll try not to,” Molly giggled. 

John grinned apologetically as he handed Hannah his own coat. “Sorry.”

“Right, then,” the Doctor announced, clapping his hands together. “If that’s it, then, I suppose this is...goodbye.”

His voice was upbeat but he said the final word with a slight hint of regret that even Mrs Hudson couldn’t pick up on. “What, you’re going?” she asked in surprise. “But you’ve only just got here.”

“Yes, and I would actually like more than a few words with you, Doctor,” Mycroft replied, stepping up to him, his umbrella twitching slightly in his hand. 

“What; are you planning on having him dissected?” Sherlock asked, his tone bitterly disapproving. “Shipping him off to a secure unit to be locked up so the public don’t learn that there are aliens loose in the universe? Because I think you’ll find you’re about fifty years too late for that, Mycroft.”

Mycroft shot him a disdainful look. “It’s my duty to protect the people of Britain from moral panic and the like, Sherlock.”

“That’s a “Yes,” then? Good. I’m glad we cleared that up.”

So saying, Sherlock strode over to the sofa and maintained exactly the same position he had done that morning. How long ago that seemed now after all that had happened, and this was Sherlock, who didn’t have a great concept of time passing anyway, with his mind being the way it was. 

“If it’s all the same to you,” the Doctor ventured, “I quite like my body parts the way they are, thank you.”

“You can’t just lock up the man who just stopped aliens from killing everyone in Britain,” John argued. “This isn’t America where anything alien gets locked up so the public are kept in the dark about it.”

“That’s as may be,” Mycroft replied, “but I’m just trying to do my job here.”

“But you can’t!” Hannah, having thrown the coats back inside the Tardis, now leaned against the door of it and folded her arms. “Whenever anything alien happens here, UNIT always get in touch with the Doctor so he can help! How are they supposed to do that if he’s locked up somewhere?”

“Alright, Hannah, calm down,” the Doctor muttered, patting her shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. 

“Then they’d have to go through the proper channels,” Mycroft replied, smoothly. 

“But-”

“I’m sorry, Miss Waters, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” the Doctor said, waving his arms as though fending off an imaginary Vespiform. “Just one question; if I go with you, then what’s going to happen to Hannah. I mean, she’s not an alien. Would she be free to go?”

Mycroft nodded. “Yes, she would be allowed to go back to living her normal life without travelling in this...thing,” and here he tapped the Tardis with the tip of his umbrella, “with you, Doctor.”

Hannah stiffened. “Thing?” She patted the side of the Tardis. “Don’t listen to him, old girl.”

“Well, in that case,” Sherlock said, slowly, opening his eyes and throwing them in the direction of the Doctor. “I suggest you two do what it is you say you do best. The Other Thing, that is.”

“What do you mean? What Other-?”

Mycroft’s splutter was cut short by the bang of the Tardis door and a second later the engines started up. Sherlock smirked as his brother gawped at the rapidly vanishing box. John grinned and Molly stifled a giggle. Finally, the Tardis vanished from sight and all was quiet in the room. 

Then, with as much dignity as he could manage at that moment, Mycroft pulled himself together. “I’ll see myself out,” he muttered, striding to the door. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs Hudson.”

“Well!” John exclaimed, finally, after Molly had left and Mrs Hudson had gone back downstairs again, and he had taken the opportunity to sink into the chair opposite the sofa, upon which Sherlock was still sprawled out. “That’s something I never thought I’d end up doing in a million years; travelling with a madman in a box!”

“Please.” Sherlock scoffed, opening his. “You could do that with me; all we’d need is a box.”

They both began to laugh and John found himself secretly thanking the Doctor for having turned up in their lives like he had, for now Sherlock’s melancholic boredom seemed to have vanished just like the Tardis.

XXX

“Coffee?”

Sherlock glanced up as Molly breezed in, brightly, carrying three paper cups in a cardboard tray. Her hair was styled differently, he observed, and she was wearing that lipstick she had worn to their Christmas party, which could only mean one thing; she had a date tonight.

“Thank you,” John replied, kindly, taking his from her. Molly smiled as she placed Sherlock’s usual black down beside him and Sherlock was about to say something to her, anything really, other than thank you, make some observation about her date, when John’s laptop began to ring, or rather the Skype box on John’s laptop began to ring. John frowned. He had set up the laptop at Sherlock’s request for this latest puzzle they had to solve, but he hadn’t expected anyone to call him on it. Even stranger, he realised, pulling the thing towards him, there was no Caller Id registering on the screen. 

He quickly hit the Answer button. “Hello?”

“Hello!” came the delighted response. “Sorry we had to rush off like that!”

“Doctor?” John exclaimed, in surprise. It had, after all, been three days since they had seen him. 

“Really wish we could have said goodbye properly!” the Doctor replied, from his end of the phone. He was leaning against the Tardis, talking earnestly into the receiver, as he and Hannah stood at the bottom of the Sapphire Waterfall on the planet Midnight, which they had visited at Hannah’s request because it was her favourite colour – blue. “Maybe next time we can stay for a bit longer.”

“Next time?” Molly piped up.

“Oh, hello, Molly, you’re there as well!” The Doctor sounded delighted. “Is anyone else there too?”

“Just me,” Sherlock confirmed.

“Hello, Sherlock! How are you? Oh, hold on, Hannah wants to say hi!”

There was a heartbeat pause and then Hannah chirped “Hi!”

“How did you even get my Skype number?” John exclaimed, still trying to get over how bizarre this all was. 

“Tardis phone; it can lock onto any number in the universe,” Hannah replied. 

“Anyway,” came the Doctor’s voice, “what was I saying? Oh, yes, Molly, next time. I have a very strong feeling we’re all going to meet again one day, so keep watching the skies, or else just keep an eye out for any kind of alien activity going on and we’ll probably be right there!”

“Why?” Sherlock asked. 

“Because we always are!” the Doctor replied, in a tone that indicated it should have been obvious.

“Yeah, you are kind of a magnet for danger,” Hannah giggled. 

“No, I mean why are we going to meet again?” Sherlock asked. 

The Doctor hesitated before replying. “Because us meeting twice in your lifetime isn’t a coincidence, Sherlock. There’s always a reason for things like this, and I’m going to find it!”

“No such thing as coincidence,” Sherlock agreed. 

“So...oh, hang on, the x-tonic star looks to be going out! Got to go! But until next time! Goodbye! Say goodbye, Hannah!”

“Bye,” Hannah sighed. 

“Bye, everyone!” The Doctor called, cheerfully.

“Bye, Doctor,” John just managed to say before the call cut out. 

“Well, I’ll say this,” Sherlock mused. “He might be a bit annoying, and he might be eccentric and he might talk nineteen to the dozen and have absolutely no dress sense and an inability to sit still and a strange fish fingers and custard habit-” 

“Is there a “But” coming anytime soon?” John asked, wryly, as Molly giggled. 

Sherlock smiled. “But I think we can trust him to be a man of his word and pop up again in the future.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so after nine long gruelling months, this fanfic is finally done! Didn't quite turn out the way I hoped, but I'm proud to say I didn't give up on it, and I kept on going until the end! And now we can move onto the sequel, which, hopefully, in the word of McFly, will be "bigger, better and with more explosions!" Lol! Just kidding; but it will be better at least!


End file.
